
Class _EEi2Xi2Y 
fopvriglif-N " 1909 



COEmiGHT DEPOSm 



GPO 




Sir Francis Drake 

From an Original Painting 



DRAKE 

AN ENGLISH EPIC 

Books i-xil 



BY 

ALFRED NOYES 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1909, By 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 



Copyright, 1906, By 
ALFRED NOYES 



All Right! Resirved 



SeptembeTf zgog 



r= r. 246128 
SEP 2 1909 



To 
RUDOLPH CHAMBERS LEHMANN 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Sir Francis Drake 

From an Original Painting . . . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Queen Elizabeth, 1585 

From a Painting by Nicholas HlUiard . . 16 

Sir Francis Walsingham 

From an Original Painting 22 

William Cecil, Lord Burleigh 

From an Original Painting by Mark Gerard 114 

Drake's Ship, The Golden Hynde 

Reproduced from Harper s Magazine by 

Permission 162 

Queen Elizabeth Knighting Drake on 
Board The Golden Hynde at Deptford, 
April 4, 1581 

- Reproduced from Harper s Magazine by 

Permission .: .; 214 

Philip II, King of Spain 

From the Painting by Titian .... 234 

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada 

Reproduced by Permission of the Lenox 

Library, New York .... .: ;.• 318 



DRAKE 

PROLOGUE TO AMERICAN 
EDITION 



r^NGLAND, my mother, 
m T Lift to my western sweetheart 
One full cup of English mead, 
breathing of the may! 
Pledge the may-flower in her face that you 
and ah, none other. 
Sent her from the mother-land 
Across the dashing spray. 

u 

Hers and yours the story : 

Think of it, oh, think of it — 
That immortal dream when El Dorado flushed 
the skies! 
Fill the beaker full and drink to Drake^s 
undying glory, 
Yours and hers (Oh, drink of it!) 
The dream that never dies. 



DRAKE 



/// 

Yours and hers the free-men 
Who scanned the stars and westward sung 
When a king commanded and the Atlantic 
thundered ''Nay!'' 
Hers as yours the pride is, for Drake our first 
of seamen 
First upon his how-sprit hung 
That hunch of English may, 

IV 

Pledge her deep^ my mother; 

Through her veins thy life-stream runs! 
Spare a thought, too, sweetheart, for my mother 
o'er the sea! 
Younger eyes are yours; hut ah, those old eyes 
and none other 
Once bedewed the may-flower; once, 
As yours, were clear and free. 

r 

Once! Nay, now as ever 
Beats within her ancient heart 
2 



PROLOGUE 



All the faith that took you forth to seek your 
heaven alone: 
Shadows come and go; hut let no shade of doubt 
dissever, 
Cloak, or cloud, or keep apart 
Two souls whose prayer is one, 

VI 

Sweetheart, ah, he tender — 

Tender with her prayer to-night! 
Such a goal might yet he ours! — the hat tie- flags 
he furled. 
All the wars of earth he crushed, if only now 
your slender 
Hand should grasp her gnarled old hand 
And federate the world. 

VII 

Foolish it may seem, sweet! 
Still the hat tie thunder lours: 
Darker loom the Dreadnoughts as old Europe goes 
her way! 
Yet your hand, your hand, has power to crush 
that evil dream, sweet; 
3 



DRAKE 



You, with younger eyes than ours 
And brows of English may. 

VIH 

If a singer cherishes 

Idle dreams or idle words. 
You shall judge — and you^ll forgive: for, far 
away or nigh, 
Still abides that Vision without which a people 
perishes: 
Love will strike the atoning chords! 
Hark — there comes a cry! 

IZ 

Over all this earth, sweet, 

The poor and weak look up to you — 
Lift their burdened shoulders, stretch their fettered 
hands in prayer: 
You, with gentle hands, can bring the 
world-wide dream to birth, sweet. 
While I lift this cup to you 
And wonder — will she care? 
4 



PROLOGUE 



X 

Kindle^ eyes, and heat, heart! 
Hold the brimming beaker up! 
All the may is burgeoning from East to golden 
West! 
England, my mother, greet America, my 
sweetheart: 
— Ah, but ere I drained the cup 
I found her on your breast. 



EXORDIUM 

WHEN on the highest ridge of that 
strange land, 
Under the cloudless, blinding tropic 
blue, 
Drake and his band of swarthy seamen stood 
With dazed eyes gazing round them, emerald fans 
Of palm that fell like fountains over cliffs 
Of gorgeous red anana bloom obscured 
Their sight on every side. Illustrious gleams 
Of rose and green and gold streamed from the 

plumes 
That flashed like living rainbows through the 

glades. 
Piratic glints of musketoon and sword, 
The scarlet scarves around the tawny throats, 
The bright brass ear-rings in the sun-black ears, 
And the calm faces of the negro guides 
Opposed their barbarous bravery to the noon: 
Yet a deep silence dreadfully besieged 

6 



EXORDIUM 



ven those mighty hearts upon the verge 

f the undiscovered world. Behind them lay 

he old earth they knew. In front they could 

not see 
7hzt lay beyond the ridge. Only they heard 
ries of the painted birds troubling the heat 
nd shivering through the woods; till Francis 

Drake 
lunged through the hush, took hold upon a tree, 
he tallest near them, and clomb upward, branch 
y branch. 

And, lo! as he swung clear above 
he steep-down forest, on his wondering eyes 
lile upon mile of rugged shimmering gold 
urst the unknown Immeasurable sea. 
hen he descended; and with a new voice 
Vowed that, God helping, he would one day plough 
Those virgin waters with an English keel. 

So here before the unattempted task. 
Above the Golden Ocean of my dream 
I clomb and saw In splendid pageant pass 
The wild adventures and heroic deeds 

7 



DRAKE 



Of England's epic age — a vision lit 

With mighty prophecies, fraught with a doom 

Worthy the great Homeric roll of song, 

Yet all unsung and unrecorded quite 

By those who might have touched with Raphael's 

hand 
The large imperial legend of our race, 
Ere it brought forth the braggarts of an hour. 
Self-worshippers who love their imaged strength. 
And as a symbol for their own proud selves 
Misuse the sacred name of this dear land, 
While England to the Empire of her soul, 
Like some great Prophet passes through the crowd 
That cannot understand ; for he must climb 
Up to that sovran thunder-smitten peak 
Where he shall grave and trench on adamant 
The Law that God shall utter by the still 
Small voice, not by the whirlwind or the fire. 
There, labouring for the Highest in himself, 
He shall achieve the good of all mankind; 
And from that lonely Sinai shall return 
Triumphant o'er the little gods of gold 
That rule their little hour upon the plain. 

8 



EXORDIUM 



Oh, thou blind master of these opened eyes, 
Be near me, therefore, now; for not In pride 
I lift lame hands to this Imperious theme; 
But yearning to a power above mine own 
Even as a man might lift his hands In prayer. 
Or as a child, perchance. In those dark days 
When London lay beleaguered and the ax 
Flashed out for Rome In England; and the blood 
Of martyrs made a purple path for Spain 
Up to the throne of Mary; as a child 
Gathering with friends upon a winter's morn 
For some mock fight between the hateful prince 
Philip and Thomas Wyatt, all at once 
Might see In gorgeous ruffs embastloned 
Popinjay plumes and slouching hats of Spain, 
Gay shimmering silks and rich encrusted gems. 
Gold collars, rare brocades, and sleek trunk-hose 
The Ambassador and peacock courtiers come 
Strutting along the white snow-strangled street, 
A walking plot of scarlet Spanish flowers. 
And with one cry a hundred boyish hands 
Put them to flight with snowballs, while the wind 
All round their Spanish ears hissed like a flight 

9 



DRAKE 



Of white-winged geese: so may I wage perchance 

A mimic war with all my heart in it, 

Munitioned with mere perishable snow, 

Which mightier hands one day will urge with steel. 

Yet may they still remember me as I 

Remember, with one little laugh of love. 

That child's game, this were wealth enough for me. 

Mother and love, fair England, hear my prayer; 

Help me that I may tell the enduring tale 

Of that great seaman, good at need, who first 

Sailed round this globe and made one little isle. 

One little isle against that huge Empire 

Of Spain, whose might was paramount on earth. 

Overtopping Babylon, Nineveh, Greece and Rome, 

Carthage and all huge Empires of the past. 

He made this little isle, against the world. 

Queen of the earth and sea. Nor this alone 

The theme; for, in a mightier strife engaged 

Even than he knew, he fought for the new faiths, 

Championing our manhood as it rose 

And cast its feudal chains before the seat 

Of kings; — nay, in a mightier battle yet 

10 



EXORDIUM 



He fought for the soul's freedom, fought the fight 
Which, though it still rings In our wondering ears. 
Was won then and for ever — that great war, 
That last Crusade of Christ against His priests, 
Wherein Rome fell behind a thunderous roar 
Of ocean triumph over burning ships 
And shattered fleets, while England, England rose. 
Her white cliffs laughing out across the waves, 
Victorious over all her enemies. 
And while he won the world for her domain. 
Her loins brought forth, her fostering bosom fed 
Souls that have swept the spiritual seas 
From heaven to hell, and justified her crown. 
For round the throne of great Elizabeth 
Verulam, Burleigh, Sidney, Spenser, More, 
Clustered like stars, rare Jonson like the crown 
Of Cassiopeia, Marlowe ruddy as Mars, 
And over all those mighty hearts arose 
The soul of Shakespeare brooding far and wide 
Beyond our small horizons, like a light 
Thrown from a vaster sun that still illumes 
Tracts which the arc of our Increasing day 
Must still leave undiscovered, unexplored. 

II 



DRAKE 



Mother and love, fair England, hear my prayer, 
As thou didst touch the heart and light the flame 
Of wonder in those eyes which first awoke 
To beauty and the sea's adventurous dream 
Three hundred years ago, three hundred years, 
And five long decades. In the leafy lanes 
Of Devon, where the tallest trees that bore 
The raven's matted nest had yielded up 
Their booty, while the perilous branches swayed 
Beneath the boyish privateer, the king 
Of many young companions — Francis Drake; 
So hear me and so help, for more than his 
My need Is, even than when he first set sail 
Upon that wild adventure with three ships 
And three-score men from grey old Plymouth 

Sound, 
Not knowing if he went to life or death. 
Nor caring greatly, so that he were true 
To his own sleepless and unfaltering soul, 
Which could not choose but hear the ringing call 
Across the splendours of the Spanish Main 
From ever fading, ever new horizons, 
And shores beyond the sunset and the sea. 

12 



EXORDIUM 



Mother and sweetheart, England; from whose 

breast, 
With all the world before them, they went forth, 
Thy seamen, o'er the wide uncharted waste, 
Wider than that Ulysses roamed of old. 
Even as the wine-dark Mediterranean 
Is wider than some tide-relinquished pool 
Among its rocks, yet none the less explored 
To greater ends than all the pride of Greece 
And pomp of Rome achieved; if my poor song 
Now spread too wide a sail, forgive thy son 
And lover, for thy love was ever wont 
To lift men up in pride above themselves 
To do great deeds which of themselves alone 
They could not; thou hast led the unfaltering feet 
Of even thy meanest heroes down to death. 
Lifted poor knights to many a great emprise. 
Taught them high thoughts, and though they kept 

their souls 
Lowly as little children, bidden them lift 
Eyes unappalled by all the myriad stars 
That wheel around the great white throne of God. 



13 



BOOK I 

NOW through the great doors of the 
Council-room 
Magnificently streamed in rich array 
The peers of England, regal of aspect 
And grave. Their silence waited for the Queen: 
And even now she came; and through their midst, 
Low as they bowed, she passed without a smile 
And took her royal seat. A bodeful hush 
Of huge anticipation gripped all hearts, 
Compressed all brows, and loaded the broad noon 
With gathering thunder : none knew what the hour 
Might yet bring forth; but the dark fire of war 
Smouldered In every eye; for every day 
The Council met debating how to join 
Honour with peace, and every day new tales 
Of English wrongs received from the red hands 
Of that gigantic Empire, Insolent 
Spain, spurred fiercer .resentments up like steeds 
Revolting, on the curb, foaming for battle, 

14 



BOOK I 



In all men's minds, against whatever odds. 

On one side of the throne great Walslngham, 

A Hon of England, couchant, watchful, calm. 

Was now the master of opinion : all 

Drew to him. Even the hunchback Burleigh 

smiled 
With half-ironic admiration now, 
As in the presence of the Queen they met 
Amid the sweeping splendours of her court, 
A cynic smile that seemed to say, " I, too. 
Would fain regain that forthright heart of fire ; 
Yet statesmanship Is but a smoother name 
For the superior cunning which ensures 
iVictory." And the Queen, too, knowing her 

strength 
And weakness, though her woman's heart leaped 

out 
To courage, yet with woman's craft preferred 
The subtler strength of Burleigh ; for she knew 
Mary of Scotland waited for that war 
To strike her In the side for Rome; she knew 
How many thousands lurked In England still 
Remembering Rome and bloody Mary's reign. 

15 



DRAKE 



France o'er a wall of bleeding Huguenots 
Watched for an hour to strike. Against all these 
What shield could England raise — this little Isle, 
Outmatched, outnumbered, perilously near 
Utter destruction? 

So the long debate 
Proceeded. 

All at once there came a cry 
Along the streets and at the palace gates 
And at the great doors of the Council-room! 
Then through the pikes and halberds a voice rose 
Imperative for entrance, and the guards 
Made way, and a strange whisper surged around, 
And through the peers of England thrilled the 

blood 
Of Agincourt as to the foot of the throne 
Came Leicester, for behind him as he came 
A seaman stumbled, travel-stained and torn. 
Crying for justice, and gasped out his tale. 
"The Spaniards,'' he moaned, " the Inquisition! 
They have taken all my comrades, all our crew. 
And flung them Into dungeons : there they lie 
Waiting for England, waiting for their Queen ! 

j6 




Queen Elizabeth, 1585 

From a Paintiiig by Nicholas Hilliard 



BOOK I 



Will you not free them? I alone am left! 
All London Is afire with it, for this 
Was one of your chief city merchant's ships — 
The Pride of London, one of Osborne's ships I 
But there Is none to help them ! I escaped 
With shrieks of torment ringing in these ears, 
The glare of torture-chambers In these eyes 
That see no faces anywhere but blind, 
Blind faces, each a bruise of white that smiles 
In idiot agony, washed with sweat and blood. 
The face of some strange thing that once was man, 
And now can only turn from side to side 
Babbling like a child, with mouth agape. 
And crying for help where there is none to hear 
Save those black vizards In the furnace-glow, 
Moving like devils at their hellish trade. . . ." 
He paused; his memory sickened, his brain 

swooned 
Back Into that wild glare of obscene pain ! 
Once more to his ears and nostrils horribly crept 
The hiss and smell of shrivelling human flesh ! 
His dumb stare told the rest: his head sank down; 
He bowed ; he fell ; he strove In agony 

17 



DRAKE 



With what all hideous words must leave untold; 
While Leicester vouched him, " This man's tale 

IS true I " 
But like a gathering storm a windy moan 
Of passion, like a tiger's, slowly crept 
From the grey lips of Walsingham. " My Queen, 
Will you not free them?'' 

Then Elizabeth, 
Whose name is one for ever with the name 
Of England, rose ; and in her face the gleam 
Of justice that makes anger terrible 
Shone, and she stretched her glittering sceptre 

forth 
And spoke, with distant empires in her eyes: 

" My lords, this is the last cry they shall wring 
From English lips unheeded: we will have 
Such remedies for this as all the world 
Shall tremble at!" 

And, on that night, while Drake 
Close in his London lodging lay concealed 
Until he knew if it were peace or war 
With Spain (for he had struck on the high seas 

i8 



BOOK I 



At Spain ; and well he knew if it were peace 
His blood would be made witness to that bond, 
And he must die a pirate's death or fly 
Westward once more) , there all alone, he pored 
By a struggling rushlight o'er a well-thumbed chart 
Of magic Islands In the enchanted seas. 
Dreaming, as boys and poets only dream 
With those that see God's wonders In the deep, 
Perilous visions of those palmy keys. 
Cocoa-nut Islands, parrot-haunted woods, 
Crisp coral reefs and blue shark-finned lagoons 
Fringed with the creaming foam, mile upon mile 
Of mystery. Dream after dream went by. 
Colouring the brown air of that London night 
With many a mad miraculous romance. 
There, suddenly, some augury, some flash 
Showed him a coming promise, a strange hint, 
Which, though he played with it, he scarce 

believed; 
Strange as In some dark cave the first fierce gleam 
Of pirate gold to some forlorn maroon 
Who tiptoes to the heap and glances round 
Askance, and dreads to hear what erst he longed 

19 



DRAKE 



To hear — some voice to break the hush ; but bathes 
Both hands with childish laughter in the gold, 
And lets it trickle through his fevered palms, 
And begins counting half a hundred times 
And loses count each time for sheer delight 
And Wonder In It: meantime, If he knew, 
Passing the cave-mouth, far away, beyond 
The still lagoon, the coral reef, the foam 
And the white fluttering chatter of the birds, 
A sail that might have saved him comes and goes 
Unseen across the blue Pacific sea. 
So Drake, too, played with fancies; but that sail 
Passed not unseen, for suddenly there came 
A firm and heavy footstep to the door. 
Then a loud knocking; and, at first, he thought 
" I am a dead man : there Is peace with Spain, 
And they are come to lead me to my doom." 
But, as he looked across one shoulder, pride 
Checking the fuller watch for what he feared. 
The door opened; and cold as from the sea 
The night rushed In, and there against the gloom, 
Clad, as It seemed, with wind and cloud and rain. 
There loomed a stately form and high grim face 

20 



BOOK I 



Loaded with deadly thoughts of Iron war — 
Walslngham. In one hand he held a map 
Marked with red lines ; the other hand held down 
The rich encrusted hilt of his great sword. 
Then Drake rose, and the other cautiously 
Closing the door drew near the flickering light 
And spread his map out on the table, saying — 
" Mark for me here the points whereat the King 
Philip of Spain may best be wounded, mark 
The joints of his harness;" and Drake looked at 

him 
Thinking, '* If he betray me, I am dead." 
But the soldier met his eyes and, with a laugh, 
Drake, quivering like a bloodhound In the leash, 
Stooped, with his finger pointing thus and thus — 
" Here would I guard, here would I He in wait, 
Here would I strike him through the breast and 

throat." 
And as he spoke he kindled, and began 
To set forth his great dreams, and high romance 
Rose like a moon reflecting the true sun 
Unseen; and as the full round moon Indeed 
Rising behind a mighty mountain-chain 

21 



DRAKE 



Will shadow forth in outline grim and black 
Its vast and ragged edges, so that moon 
Of high romance rose greatly shadowing forth 
The grandeur of his dreams, until their might 
Dawned upon Walsingham, and he, too, saw 
For a moment of muffled moonlight and wild cloud 
The vision of the imperious years to be ! 
But suddenly Drake paused as one who strays 
Beyond the bounds of caution, paused and cursed 
His tongue for prating like a moon-struck boy's. 
". I am mad," he cried, " I am mad to babble so ! " 
Then Walsingham drew near him with strange 

eyes. 
And muttered slowly, "Write that madness down; 
Ay, write it down, that madman's plan of thine; 
Sign it, and let me take it to the Queen." 
But the weather-wiser seaman warily 
Answered him, " If it please Almighty God 
To take away our Queen Elizabeth, 
Seeing that she is mortal as ourselves, 
England might then be leagued with Spain, and I 
Should here have sealed my doom. I will not put 
My pen to paper." 

22 




Sir Francis Walsingham 

From an Original Painting 



BOOK I 



So, across the charts, 
With that dim light on each grim countenance 
The seaman and the courtier subtly fenced 
With words and thoughts, but neither would betray 
His whole heart to the other. At the last 
Walsingham gripped the hand of Francis Drake 
And left him wondering. 

On the third night came 
A messenger from Walsingham, who bade 
Drake to the Palace, where, without one word. 
The statesman met him in an anteroom 
And led him, with flushed cheek and beating heart. 
Along a mighty gold-gloomed corridor 
Into a high-arched chamber, hung with tall 
Curtains of gold-fringed silk and tapestries 
From Flanders looms, whereon were flowers and 

beasts 
And forest-work, great knights, with hawk on 

hand. 
Riding for ever on their glimmering steeds 
Through bowery glades to some immortal face 
Beyond the fairy fringes of the world. 
A silver lamp swung softly overhead, 

23 



DRAKE 



Fed with some perfumed oil that shed abroad 
Delicious light and fragrances as rare 
As those that stirred faint wings at eventide 
Through the King's House In Lebanon of old. 
Into a quietness as of fallen bloom 
Their feet sank in that chamber ; and, all round, 
Soft hills of Moorish cushions dimly drowsed 
On glimmering crimson couches. Near the lamp 
An ebony chess-board stood Inlaid with squares 
Of ruby and emerald, garnished with cinque-foils 
Of silver, bears and ragged staves : the men, 
Likewise of precious stones, were all arrayed — 
Bishops and knights and elephants and pawns — '■ 
As for a game. Sixteen of them were set 
In silver white, the other sixteen gilt. 
Now, as Drake gazed upon an arras, nigh 
The farther doors, whereon was richly wrought 
The picture of that grave and lovely queen 
Penelope, with cold hands weaving still 
The unending web, while in an outer court 
The broad-limbed wooers basking In the sun 
On purple fleeces took from white-armed girls, 
Up-klrtled to the knee, the crimson wine; 

24 



BOOK I 



There, as he gazed and thought, " Is this not like 
Our Queen Elizabeth, who waits and weaves, 
Penelope of England, her dark web 
Unendingly till England's Empire come?" 
There, as he gazed, for a moment, he could vow 
The pictured arras moved. Well had it been 
Had he drawn sword and pierced it through and 

through ; 
But he suspected nothing and said nought 
To Walslngham; for thereupon they heard 
The sound of a low lute and a sweet voice 
Carolling like a gold-caged nightingale, 
Caught by the fowlers ere he found his mate, 
And singing all his heart out evermore 
To the unknown forest-love he ne'er should see. 
And Walslngham smiled sadly to himself. 
Knowing the weary queen had bidden some maid 
Sing to her, even as David sang to Saul; 
Since all her heart was bitter with her love 
Or so It was breathed (and there the chess-board 

stood, 
Her love's device upon it) , though she still. 
For England's sake, must keep great foreign kings 

25 



DRAKE 



Her suitors, wedding no man till she died. 
Nor did she know how, In her happiest hour 
Remembered now most sorrowfully, the moon, 
Vicegerent of the sky, through summer dews, 
As that sweet ballad tells In plaintive rhyme, 
Silvering the grey old Cumnor towers and all 
The hollow haunted oaks that grew thereby. 
Gleamed on a casement whence the pure white 

face 
Of Amy Robsart, wife of Leicester, wife 
Unknown of the Queen's lover, a frail bar 
To that proud Earl's ambition, quietly gazed 
And heard the night-owl hoot a dark presage 
Of murder through her timid, shuddering heart. 
But of that deed Elizabeth knew nought; 
Nay, white as Amy Robsart In her dream 
Of love she listened to the sobbing lute, 
Bitterly happy, proudly desolate; 
So heavy are all earth's crowns and sharp with 

thorns I 
But tenderly that high-born maiden sang: 



26 



BOOK I 



Song 

Now the purple night is past, 

Now the moon more faintly glows, 
Dawn has through thy casement cast 

Roses on thy breast, a rose; 
Now the kisses are all done, 

Now the world awakes anew. 
Now the charmed hour is gone, 

Let not love go, too. 

When old winter, creeping nigh. 

Sprinkles raven hair with white, 
Dims the brightly glancing eye. 

Laughs away the dancing light, 
Roses may forget their sun, 

Lilies may forget their dew. 
Beauties perish, one by one, 

Let not love go, too. 

Palaces and towers of pride 

Crumble year by year away; 
Creeds like robes are laid aside. 
Even our very tombs decay! 
27 



DRAKE 



When the all-conquering moth and rust 
Gnaw the goodly garment through. 

When the dust returns to dust, 
Let not love go, too. 

Kingdoms melt away like snow, 

Gods are spent like wasting flames, 
Hardly the new peoples know 

Their divine thrice-worshipped names! 
At the last great hour of all, 

When Thou makest all things new. 
Father, hear Thy children call, 

Let not love go, too. 

The song ceased : all was still ; and now It seemed 
Power brooded on the silence, and Drake saw 
A woman come to meet him, — tall and pale 
And proud she seemed : behind her head two wings 
As of some mighty phantom butterfly 
Glimmered with jewel-sparks In the gold gloom. 
Her small, pure, grey-eyed face above her ruff 
Was chiselled like an agate; and he knew 
It was the Queen. Low bent he o'er her hand; 
And " Ah," she said, " Sir Francis Walslngham 

28 



BOOK I 



Hath told me what an English heart beats here! 
Know you what Injuries the King of Spain 
Hath done us?" Drake looked up at her: she 

smiled, 
** We find you apt! Will you not be our knight? 
For we are helpless " — witchlngly she smiled — 
" We are not ripe for war; our policy 
Must still be to uphold the velvet cloak 
Of peace ; but I would have It mask the hand 
That holds the dagger ! Will you not unfold 
Your scheme to us? " And then with a low bow 
Walslngham, at a signal from the Queen, 
Withdrew; and she looked down at Drake and 

smiled; 
And In his great simplicity the man 
Spake all his heart out like some youthful knight 
Before his Glorlana: his heart burned. 
Knowing he talked with England, face to face; 
And suddenly the Queen bent down to him, 
England bent down to him, and his heart reeled 
With the beauty of her presence — for Indeed 
Women alone have royal power like this 
Within their very selves enthroned and shrined 

29 



DRAKE 



To draw men's hearts out ! Royal she bent down 
And touched his hand for a moment. " Friend," 

she said, 
Looking into his face with subtle eyes, 
" I have searched thy soul to-night and know full 

well 
How I can trust thee ! Canst thou think that I, 
The daughter of my royal father, lack 
The fire which every boor In England feels 
Burning within him as the bloody score 
Which Spain writes on the flesh of Englishmen 
Mounts higher day by day? Am I not Tudor? 
I am not deaf or blind; nor yet a king! 
I am a woman and a queen, and where 
Kings would have plunged into their red revenge 
Or set their throne up on this temporal shore, 
As flatterers bade that wiser king Canute, 
Thence to command the advancing tides of battle 
Till one ensanguined sea whelm throne and king 
And kingdom ; friend, I take my woman's way. 
Smile In mine enemies' faces with a heart 
All hell, and undermine them hour by hour! 
This Island scarce can fend herself from France, 

30 



BOOK I 



And now Spain holds the keys of all the world : 
How should we fight her, save that my poor wit 
Hath won the key to Philip ? Oh, I know 
His treacherous, lecherous heart, and hour by hour 
My nets are drawing round him. I, that starve 
My public armies, feed his private foes, 
Nourish his rebels In the Netherlands, 
Nay, sacrifice mine own poor woman^s heart 
To keep him mine — there Is no sacrifice 
On earth like this — and surely now stands Fate 
With hand uplifted by the doors of Spain 
Ready to knock : the time Is close at hand 
When I shall strike, once, and no second stroke. 
Remember, friend, though kings have fought for 

her. 
This England, with the trident In her grasp. 
Was ever woman; and she waits her throne; 
And thou canst speed It. Furnish thee with ships, 
Gather thy gentleman adventurers, 
And be assured thy parsimonious queen — -- 
Oh, ay, she knows that chattering of the world — 
Will find thee wealth enough. Then put to sea. 
Fly the black flag of piracy awhile 

31 



DRAKE 



Against these blackest foes of all mankind. 
Nay; what hast thou to do with piracy? 
Hostis humani generis Indeed 
Is Spain : she dwells beyond the bounds of law ; 
Thine Is no piracy, whate'er men say, 
Thou art a knight on Glorlana's quest. 
Oh, lay that golden unction to thy soul, 
This IS no piracy, but glorious war, 
Waged for thy country and for all mankind; 
Therefore put out to sea without one fear, 
Ransack their El Dorados of the West, 
Pillage their golden galleons, sap their strength 
Even at Its utmost fountains: let them know 
That there Is blood, not water, In our veins. 
Carry thy scheme out to the glorious end. 
And, though at first thou needs must ride alone 
And unsupported, ere that end is reached. 
When I shall give the word, nay, but one word, 
All England shall be up and after thee : 
The sword of England shall shine over thee, 
And round about thee like a guardian fire ; 
All the great soul of England shall be there; 
Her mighty dead shall at that cry of doom 

32 



BOOK I 



Rise from their graves, and In God's panoply 
Plunge with out standards through immortal 

storms 
When Drake rides out across the wreck of Rome. 
As yet we must be cautious ; let no breath 
Escape thee, save to thy most trusted friends; 
For now. If my lord Burleigh heard one word 
Of all thou hast In mind, he Is so much 
The friend of caution and the beaten road 
He would not rest till he had wrecked thy hopes 
And sealed thy doom ! Go now, fit out thy ships. 
Walslngham Is empowered to give thee gold 
Immediately, but look to him for more 

As thou shalt need It, gold and gold to spare, 
My golden-hearted pilot to the shores 
Of Empire — so farewell; " and through the gloom 
She vanished as she came; and Drake groped, 

dazed. 
Out through the doors, and found great Walslng- 
ham 
Awaiting him with gold. 

But In the room 



DRAKE 



Where Drake had held his converse with the 

Queen 
The embroidered arras moved, and a lean face, 
White with its long eavesdropping upon death. 
Crept out and peered as a venomous adder peers 
From out dark ferns, then as the reptile flashes 
Along a path between two banks of flowers 
Almost too swift for sight, a stealthy form — •- 
One of the fifty spies whom Burleigh paid — 
Passed down the gold-gloomed corridor to seek 
His master, whom among great books he found. 
Calm, like a mountain brooding o'er the sea. 
Nor did he break that calm for all these winds 
Of rumour that now burst from out the sky. 
His brow bent like a cliff over his thoughts, 
And the spy watched him half resentfully. 
Thinking his news well worth a blacker frown. 
At last the statesman smiled and answered, " Go; 
Fetch Thomas Doughty, Leicester's secretary." 

Few suns had risen and set ere Francis Drake 
Had furnished forth his ships with guns and men. 
Tried seamen that he knew in storms of old, — 

34 



BOOK I 



Will Harvest, who could haul the ropes and fight 
All day, and sing a foc'sle song to cheer 
Sea-weary hearts at night; brave old Tom Moone 
The carpenter, whose faithful soul looked up 
To Drake's large mastery with a mastiff's eyes; 
And three-score trusty mariners, all scarred 
And weather-beaten. After these there came 
Some two-score gentleman adventurers, 
Gay college lads or lawyers that had grown 
Sick of the* dusty Temple, and were fired 
With tales of the rich Indies and those tall 
Enchanted galleons drifting through the West, 
Laden with Ingots and broad bars of gold. 
Already some had bought at a great price 
Green birds of Guatemala, which they wore 
On their slouched hats, tasting the high romance 
And new-found colours of the world like wine. 
By night they gathered in a marvellous inn 
Beside the black and secret flowing Thames; 
And joyously they tossed the magic phrase 
"Pieces of eight" from mouth to mouth, and 

laughed 
And held the red wine up, night after night, 

35 



DRAKE 



Around their tables, toasting Francis Drake. 
Among these came a courtier, and none knew 
Or asked by whose approval, for each thought 
Some other brought him ; yet he made his way 
Cautiously, being a man with a smooth tongue, 
The secretary of Leicester; and his name 
Was Thomas Doughty. Most of all with Drake 
He won his way to friendship, till at last 
There seemed one heart between them and one 
soul. 



^ 



36 



BOOK II 

SO on a misty grey December morn 
Five ships put out from calm old Plym- 
outh Sound; 
Five little ships, the largest not so large 
As many a coasting yacht or fishlng-trawl 
To-day; yet these must brave uncharted seas 
Of unlmagined terrors, haunted glooms, 
And shadowy horrors of an unknown world 
Wild as primaeval chaos. In the first, 
The Golden Hynde, a ship of eighteen guns, 
Drake sailed : John Wynter, a queen's captain, next 
Brought out the Elizabeth, a stout new ship 
Of sixteen guns. The pinnace Christopher 
Came next, in staunch command of old Tom 

Moone 
Who, five years back, with reeking powder grimed, 
Off Cartagena fought against the stars 
All night, and, as the sun arose in blood. 
Knee-deep in blood and brine, stood in the dark 

37 



DRAKE 



Perilous hold and scuttled his own ship 

The Swan, bidding her go down to God's great 

deep 
Rather than yield her up a prize to Spain. 
Lastly two gentleman-adventurers 
Brought out the new Swan and the Mary gold. 

Their crews, all told, were eight score men and 

boys. 
Not only terrors of the deep they braved, 
Bodiless witchcrafts of the black abyss. 
Red gaping mouths of hell and gulfs of fire 
That yawned for all who passed the tropic line; 
But death lurked round them from their setting 

forth. 
Mendoza, plenipotentiary of Spain, 
By spies Informed, had swiftly warned his king, 
Who sent out mandates through his huge empire 
From Guadalchlber to the golden West 
For the Instant sinking of all English ships 
And the Instant execution of their crews 
Who durst appear In the Caribbean Sea. 
Moreover, in the pith of their emprise 

38 



BOOK II 



A peril lurked — Burleigh's emissaries, 

The smooth-tongued Thomas Doughty, who had 

brought 
His brother— unacqultted of that charge 
Of poisoning, raised against him by the friends 
Of Essex, but In luckless time released 
Lately for lack of proof, on no strong plea. 
These two wound through them like two snakes at 

ease 
In Eden, waiting for their venomous hour. 
Especially did Thomas Doughty toll 
With soft and flowery tongue to win his way; 
And Drake, whose rich Imagination craved 
For something more than simple seaman's talk, 
Was marvellously drawn to this new friend. 
Who with the scholar's mind, the courtier's gloss, 
The lawyer's wit, the adventurer's romance. 
Gold honey from the blooms of Euphues, 
Rare flashes from the Mermaid and sweet smiles 
Copied from Sidney's self, even to the glance 
Of sudden, liquid sympathy, gave Drake 
That banquet of the soul he ne'er had known 
Nor needed till he knew, but needed now. 

39 



DRAKE 



So to the light of Doughty's answering eyes 
He poured his Inmost thoughts out, hour by hour ; 
And Doughty colled up In the heart of Drake. 

Against such odds the tiny fleet set sail; 
Yet gallantly and with heroic pride, 
Escutcheoned pavlsades, emblazoned poops, 
Banners and painted shields and close-fights hung 
With scarlet broideries. Every polished gun 
Grinned through the jaws of some heraldic beast, 
Gilded and carven and gleaming with all hues; 
While In the cabin of the Golden Hynde 
Rich perfumes floated, given by the great Queen 
Herself to Drake as Captain-General; 
So that It seemed her soul was with the fleet, 
A presence to remind him, far away, 
Of how he talked with England face to face, — 
No pirate he, but Glorlana's knight. 
Silver and gold his table furniture. 
Engraved and richly chased, lavishly gleamed 
While, fanned by favouring airs, the ships ad- 
vanced 
With streaming flags and ensigns and sweet chords 

40 



A 



BOOK II 



Of music struck by skilled musicians 
Whom Drake brought with him, not from vanity, 
But knowing how the pulse of men beats high 
To music; and the hearts of men like these 
Were open to the high romance of earth. 
And they that dwelt so near God's mystery 
Were proud of their own manhood. They went 

out 
To danger as to a sweetheart far away, 
Who even now was drawing the western clouds 
Like a cymar of silk and snow-white furs 
Close to her, till her body's beauty seemed 
Clad in a mist of kisses. They desired 
Her glittering petulance and her sulky sweet 
Red pouts of anger. They went out to her 
With pomp and ceremony, richly attired 
And girt about with honour as befit 
Souls that might talk with angels by the way. 

Light as the sea-birds dipping their white wings 
In foam before the gently heaving prows 
Each heart beat, while the low soft lapping splash 
Of water racing past them ripped and tore 

41 



DRAKE 



Whiter and faster, and the bellying sails 
Filled out, and the white cliffs of England sank 
Dwindling behind the broad grey plains of sea. 
Meekly content and tamely stay-at-home 
The sea-birds seemed that piped across the waves; 
And Drake, be-mused, leaned smiling to his friend 
Doughty and said, " Is It not strange to know 
When we return yon speckled herring-gulls 
Will still be wheeling, dipping, flashing there 
Just as we leave them? Ah, my heart cries out 
We shall not find a sweeter land afar 
Than those thyme-scented hills we leave behind! 
Soon the young lambs will bleat across the combes, 
And breezes will bring puffs of hawthorn scent 
Down Devon lanes; over the purple moors 
Lavrocks will carol and the plover cry, 
The nesting peewit cry; on village greens 
Around the May-pole, while the moon hangs low, 
The boys and girls of England merrily swing 
In country footing through the flowery dance ; 
Roses return : I blame them not who stay, 
I blame them not at all who cling to home. 
For many of us indeed shall not return, 

42 



BOOK II 



Nor ever know that sweetness any more. 

But when our English clover once again 

Reddens round valleys thick with waving gold, 

Many beyond the faintest flush of dawn 

Shall sleep for ever In the cold green sea: 

'TIs only we poor wandering prodigals 

That know the worth and wealth of heaven and 

home. 
Bear with my weakness, for my heart is full 
Of yonder England, our sweet Ida mount, 
Mother of all our hopes and dreams and prayers, 
Nor do I think a man needs be ashamed 
Whose eyes grow wet to leave his native land ; 
For there Is nought a man should hold more dear 
Than his own country and his father's home." 
Then the other with a laugh, ^' Nay, like the man 
Who slept a hundred years we shall return 
And find our England strange: there are great 

storms 
Brewing; God only knows what we shall find — 
Perchance a Spanish king upon the throne ! 
What then? " And Drake, " I should put down 

my helm, 

43 



DRAKE 



And out once more to the unknown golden West 

To die, as I have lived, an Englishman.'' 

So said he, while the white cliffs dwindled down, 

Faded, and vanished; but the prosperous wind 

Carried the five ships onward over the swell 

Of swinging, sweeping seas, till the sun sank. 

And height o'er height the chaos of the skies 

Broke out Into the miracle of the stars. 

Frostily glittering, all the Milky Way 

Lay bare like diamond-dust upon the robe 

Of some great king. Orion and the Plough 

Glimmered through drifting gulfs of silver fleece, 

And, far away. In Italy, that night 

Young Galileo, looking upward, heard 

The self-same whisper through that wild abyss 

Which now called Drake out to the unknown West. 

But, after supper, Drake came up on deck 

With Doughty, and on the cold poop as they 

leaned 
And gazed across the rolling gleam and gloom 
Of mighty muffled seas, began to give 
iVoice to those lovely captives of the brain 
Which, like princesses In some forest-tower, 

44 



BOOK II 



Still yearn for the delivering prince, the sweet 

Far bugle-note that calls from answering minds. 

He told him how, in those dark days which now 

Seemed like an evil dream, when the Princess 

Elizabeth even trembled for her life 

And read there, by the gleam of Smithfield fires, 

Those cunning lessons of diplomacy 

Which saved her then and now for England's sake, 

He passed his youth. 'Twas when the power of 

Rome 
Began to light the gloom with that great glare 
Of martyrdom which, while the stars endure, 
Bears witness how men overcame the world. 
Trod the red flames beneath their feet like 

flowers — 
Yea, cast aside the blackening robe of flesh, 
While with a crown of joy upon their heads, 
Even as into a palace, they passed through 
The portals of the tomb to prove their love 
Stronger at least than death : and, in those days 
A Puritan, with Iron in his soul. 
Having In earlier manhood occupied 
His business in great waters and beheld 

45 



DRAKE 



The bloody cowls of the Inquisition pass 
Before the midnight moon as he kept watch; 
And having then forsworn the steely sea 
To dwell at home in England with his love 
At Tavistock in Devon, Edmund Drake 
Began, albeit too near the Abbey walls, 
To speak too staunchly for his ancient faith; 
And with his young child Francis, had to flee 
By night at last for shelter to the coast. 
Little the boy remembered of that flight, 
Pinioned behind his father, save the clang 
And clatter of the hoofs on stony ground 
Striking a sharp blue fire, while country tales 
Of highwaymen kindled his reckless heart 
As the great steed went shouldering through the 

night. 
There Francis, laying a little sunburnt hand 
On the big bolstered pistol at each side. 
Dreamed with his wide grey eyes that he himself 
Was riding out on some freebooting quest. 
And felt himself heroic. League by league 
The magic world rolled past him as they rode. 
Leaving him nothing but a memory 

46 



BOOK II 



Of his own making. Vaguely he perceived 
A thousand meadows darkly streaming by 
With clouds of perfume from their secret flowers, 
A wayside cottage-window pointing out 
A golden finger o'er the purple road; 
A puff of garden roses or a waft 
Of honeysuckle blown along a wood, 
While overhead that silver ship, the moon, 
Sailed slowly down the gulfs of glittering stars, 
Till, at the last, a buffet of fresh wind 
Fierce with sharp savours of the stinging brine 
Against his dreaming face brought up a roar 
Of mystic welcome from the Channel seas. 
And there Drake paused for a moment, as a song 
Stole o'er the waters from the Mary gold, 
Where some musician, striking luscious chords 
Of sweet-stringed music, freed his heart's desire 
In symbols of the moment, which the rest. 
And Doughty among them, scarce could 
understand. 



47 



DRAKE 



Song 

The moon is up: the stars are bright: 

The wind is fresh and free! 
We^re out to seek for gold to-night 

Across the silver sea! 
The world was growing grey and old, 

Break out the sails again! 
WeWe out to seek a Realm of Gold 

Beyond the Spanish Main. 

WeWe sick of all the cringing knees y 

The courtly smiles and lies! 
God, let Thy singing Channel breeze 

Lighten our hearts and eyes! 
Let love no more be bought and sold 

For earthly loss or gain: 
WeWe out to seek an Age of Gold 

Beyond the Spanish Main, 

Beyond the light of far Cathay, 
Beyond all mortal dreams, 

Beyond the reach of night and day 
Our Eldorado gleams, 

48 . , 



BOOK II 



Revealing — as the skies unfold — 

A star without a stain, 
The Glory of the Gates of Gold 

Beyond the Spanish Main. 

And, as the skilled musician made the words 

Of momentary meaning still Imply 

His own eternal hope and heart's desire, 

Without belief, perchance. In Drake's own quest — 

To Drake's own greater mind the eternal glory 

Seemed to transfigure his Immediate hope. 

But Doughty only heard a sweet concourse 

Of sounds: they ceased, and Drake resumed his 

tale 
Of that strange flight In boyhood to the sea. 
Next, the red-curtained Inn and kindly hands 
Of Protestant Plymouth held his memory long; 
Often In strange and distant dreams he saw 
That scene which now he tenderly pourtrayed 
To Doughty's half-Ironic smiling lips, 
Half-sympathetic eyes; he saw again 
That small Inn parlour with homely fare 
Set forth upon the table, saw the gang 

49 



DRAKE 



Of seamen reeking from the spray come In, 

Like great new thoughts to some adventurous 

brain. 
Feeding his wide grey eyes he saw them stand 
Around the crimson fire and stamp their feet 
And scatter the salt drops from their big sea-boots ; 
And all that night he lay awake and heard 
Mysterious thunderings of eternal tides 
Moaning out of a cold and houseless gloom 
Beyond the world, that made it seem most sweet 
To slumber In a little four-walled inn 
Immune from all that vastness. But at dawn 
He woke, he leapt from bed, he ran and lookt. 
There, through the tiny high bright casement, 

there, — ^ 
Oh, fairy vision of that small boy's face 
Peeping at daybreak through the diamond pane ! — 
There first he saw the wondrous new-born world, 
And round its princely shoulders wildly flowing, 
Gemmed with a myriad clusters of the sun. 
The magic azure mantle of the sea. 
And, afterwards, there came those marvellous days 
When, on that battleship, a disused hulk 

50 



BOOK II 



Rotting to death in Chatham Reach, they found 

Sanctuary and a dwelling-place at last. 

For Hawkins, that great shipman, being their 

friend, 
A Protestant, with power on Plymouth town, 
Nigh half whereof he owned, made Edmund 

Drake 
Reader of prayer to all the ships of war 
That lay therein. So there the dreaming boy, 
Francis, grew up in that grim nursery 
Among the ropes and masts and great dumb 

mouths 
Of idle ordnance. In that hulk he heard 
Many a time his father and his friends 
Over some wild-eyed troop of refugees 
Thunder against the powers of Spain and Rome, 
*' Idolaters, who defiled the House of God 
In England; " and all round them, as he heard. 
The clang and clatter of shipwright hammers 

rang, 
And hour by hour upon his vision rose, 
In solid oak reality, new ships, 
As Ilion rose to music, ships of war, 

51 



DRAKE 



The visible shapes and symbols of his dream, 
Unconscious yet, but growing as they grew, 
A wondrous incarnation, hour by hour. 
Till with their towering masts they stood complete, 
Embodied thoughts, in God's own dockyards built. 
For Drake ere long to lead against the world. 
There, as to round the tale with ringing gold, 
Across the waters from the full-plumed Swan 
The music of a Mermaid roundelay — 
Our Lady of the Sea, a Dorian theme 
Tuned to the soul of England — charmed the 
moon. 

Song 
I 

Queen Venus wandered away with a cry, — 

N^oserez vous, mon hel ami? — 
For the purple wound in Adon's thigh; 

Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
With a bitter farewell from sky to sky. 

And a moan — a moan from sea to sea; 
N*oserez vous, mon hel, mon hel, 

N*oserez vous, mon hel ami? 
52 



BOOK II 



II 

The soft iEgean heard her sigh, — 

N^oserez vous, mon hel ami? — 
Heard the Spartan hills reply, 

Je vous en pr'ie, pity me; 
Spain was aware of her drawing nigh 

Foot-gilt from the blossoms of Italy; 
N^oserez vous, mon hel, mon hel, 

N^oserez vous, mon hel ami? 

Ill 

In France they heard her voice go by, — 

N^oserez vous, mon hel ami? — 
And on the May-wind droop and die, 

Je vous en prie, pity me; 
Your maidens choose their loves, but I — 

White as I came from the foam-white sea, 
N'oserez vous, mon hel, mon hel, 

N'oserez vous, mon hel ami? 

IV 

The warm red-meal-winged butterfly, — 
N'oserez vous, mon hel ami? — 
53 



DRAKE 



Beat on her breast in the golden rye, — 

Je vous en prie^ pity me, — 
Stained her breast with a dusty dye 

Red as the print of a kiss might be I 
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon hel, 

N^oserez vous, mon bel ami? 

V 

Is there no land, afar or nigh, — 

N'oserez vous, mon hel ami? — 
But dreads the kiss o' the sea? Ah, why — 

Je vous en prie, pity me ! — 
Why will ye cling to the loves that die? 

Is earth all Adon to my plea ? 
N'oserez vous, mon hel, mon hel, 

N'oserez vous, mon hel ami? 

VI 

Under the warm blue summer sky, — 
N'oserez vous, mon hel ami? — 

With outstretched arms and a low long sigh,- 
Je vous en prie, pity me; — 

Over the Channel they saw her fly 

54 



BOOK II 



To the white-cliffed island that crowns the 
sea, 
N^oserez vous, mon hel, mon bel, 
N^oserez vous, mon bel ami? 

VII 

England laughed as her Queen drew nigh, — 

N^oserez vous, mon bel ami? — 
To the white-walled cottages gleaming high, 

Je vous en prie, pity me I 
They drew her in with a joyful cry 

To the hearth where she sits with a babe on 
her knee. 
She has turned her moan to a lullaby. 

She is nursing a son to the kings of the sea, 
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 

N*oserez vous, mon bel ami? 

Such memories, on the plunging Golden Hynde, 
Under the stars, Drake drew before his friend 
Doughty; but touched most briefly on his great 
Voyage to Darien, and the famous Tree, 
And those wild exploits down to Rio Grande, 

55 



DRAKE 



Which even now had made his fierce renown 
Terrible to all lonely ships of Spain. 
E^en now, indeed, that poet of Portugal, 
Lope de Vega, filled with this new fear 
Began to meditate his epic muse 
Till, like a cry of panic from his lips, 
He shrilled the faint Dragontea forth, wherein 
Drake is that Dragon of the Apocalypse, 
The dread Antagonist of God and Man. 

Well had It been for Doughty on that night 
Had he not heard what followed; for, indeed. 
When two minds clash, not often does the less 
Conquer the greater; but, without one thought 
Of evil, seeing they now were safe at sea, 
Drake told him, only somewhat, yet too much. 
Of that close conference with the Queen. 

And, lo! 
The face of Doughty blanched with a slow thought 
That crept like a cold worm through all his brain, 
** Thus much I knew, though secretly, before ; 
But here he freely tells me as his friend; 
If I am false and he is what they say, 

56 



BOOK II 



His knowledge of my knowledge will mean death." 
But Drake looked round at Doughty with a smile 
And said, " Forgive me now : thou art not used 
To these cold nights at sea ! thou tremblest, friend; 
Let us go down and drink a cup of sack 
To our return ! " And at that kindly smile 
Doughty shook off his nightmare mood, and 

thought, 
" I am no sea-dog, but a man of birth ! 
The yard-arm is for dogs, not gentlemen ! 
Even Drake would not misuse a man of birth! " 
And in the cabin of the Golden Hynde 
Revolving subtle treacheries he sat. 
There with the sugared phrases of the court 
And general sentiments which Drake believed 
Were revelations of the man's own mxind, 
Bartering beads for gold, he drew out all 
The simple Devon seaman's inmost heart, 
And coiled up In the soul of Francis Drake. 
There In the solemn night they Interchanged 
Lies for sweet confidences. From one wall 
The picture of Drake's love looked down on him; 
And, like a bashful schoolboy's, that bronzed face 

57 



DRAKE 



Flushed as he blurted out with brightening eyes 
And quickening breath how he had seen her first, 
Crowned on the village green, a Queen of May. 
Her name, too, was Elizabeth, he said. 
As If It proved that she, too, was a queen. 
Though crowned with milk-white Devon may 

alone, 
And queen but of one plot of meadow-sweet. 
As yet, he said, he had only kissed her hand. 
Smiled in her eyes and — there Drake also blanched. 
Thinking, " I ne'er may see her face again," 
And Doughty comforted his own dark heart 
Thinking, *' I need not fear so soft a soul 
As this " ; and yet, he wondered how the man. 
Seeing his love so gripped him, none the less 
Could leave her, thus to follow after dreams; 
For faith to Doughty was an unknown word, 
And trustfulness the property of fools. 
At length they parted, each to his own couch. 
Doughty with half a chuckle, Francis Drake 
With one old-fashioned richly grateful prayer 
Blessing all those he loved, as he had learnt 
Beside his mother's knee in Devon days. 

58 



BOOK II 



So all night long they sailed; but when a rift 
Of orchard crimson broke the yellowing gloom 
And barred the closely clouded East with dawn, 
Behold, a giant galleon overhead. 
Lifting its huge black shining sides on high, 
Loomed like some misty monster of the deep : 
And, sullenly rolling out great gorgeous folds 
Over her rumbled like a thunder-cloud 
The heavy flag of Spain. The splendid poop, 
Mistily lustrous as a dragon's hoard 
Seen In some magic cave-mouth o'er the sea 
Through shimmering April sunlight after rain, 
Blazed to the morning; and her port-holes grinned 
With row on row of cannon. There at once 
One sharp shrill whistle sounded, and those five 
Small ships, mere minnows clinging to the flanks 
Of that Leviathan, unseen, unheard. 
Undreamt of, grappled her. She seemed asleep. 
Swinging at ease with great half-slackened sails. 
Majestically careless of the dawn. 
There in the very native seas of Spain, 
There with the yeast and foam of her proud cliffs, 
Her own blue coasts. In sight across the waves, 

59 



DRAKE 



Up her Titanic sides without a sound 
The naked-footed British seamen swarmed 
With knives between their teeth : then on her decks 
They dropped like panthers, and the softly fierce 
Black-bearded watch of Spaniards, all amazed, 
Rubbing their eyes as if at a wild dream, 
Upraised a sudden shout. El Draqiie! El Draque! 
And flashed their weapons out, but all too late; 
For, ere their sleeping comrades reached the deck, 
The little watch, outnumbered and outmatched, 
Lay bound, and o'er the hatches everywhere 
The points of naked cutlasses on guard 
Gleamed, and without a struggle those below 
Gave up their arms, their poignards jewelled thick 
With rubies, and their blades of Spanish steel. 

Then onward o'er the great grey gleaming sea 
They swept with their rich booty, night and day. 
Five other prizes, one for every ship, 
Out of the seas of Spain they suddenly caught 
And carried with them, laughing as they w^ent — 
"Now, now indeed the Rubicon is crossed; 
Now have we singed the eyelids and the beard 

60 



BOOK II 



Of Spain; now have we roused the hornet's nest; 
Now shall we sail against a world in arms; 
Now we have nought between us and black death 
But our own hands, five ships, and three score 

guns." 
So laughed they, plunging through the bay of 

storms, 
Biscay, and past Gibraltar, not yet clothed 
With British thunder, though, as one might dream. 
Gazing in dim prophetic grandeur out 
Across the waves while that small fleet went by. 
Or watching them with love's most wistful fear 
As they plunged Southward to the lonely coasts 
Of Africa, till right in front up-soared. 
Tremendous over ocean, Teneriffe, 
Cloud-robed, but crowned with colours of the 

dawn. 
Already those two traitors were at work, 
Doughty and his false brother, among the crews, 
Who knew not yet the vastness of their quest, 
Nor dreamed of aught beyond the accustomed 

world; 
For Drake had kept It secret, and the thoughts 

6i 



DRAKE 



Of some that he had shipped before the mast 
Set sail scarce farther than for Mogadore 
In West Morocco, or at the utmost mark 
For northern Egypt, by the midnight woods 
And crystal palace roofed with chrysoprase, 
Where Prester John had reigned five hundred 

years, 
And Sydon, river of jewels, through the dark 
Enchanted gorges rolled Its rays along! 
Some thought of Rio Grande ; but scarce to ten 
The true intent was known ; while to divert 
The rest from care the skilled musicians played. 
But those two Doughtys cunningly devised 
By chance-dropt words to breathe a hint abroad; 
And through the foc'sles crept a grisly fear 
Of things that lay beyond the bourne of earth, 
Till even those hardy seamen almost quailed; 
And now, at any moment, they might turn 
With terror in their eyes. They might refuse 
To sail Into that fabled burning Void 
Or brave that primuim mobile which drew 
O'er-daring ships Into the jaws of hell 
Beyond the Pole Antartlcke, where the sea 

62 



BOOK II 



Rushed down through fiery mountains, and no sail 
Could e'er return against Its roaring stream. 
Now down the coast of Barbary they cruised 
Till Christmas Eve embraced them in the heart 
Of summer. In a bay of mellow calm 
They moored, and as the fragrant twilight brought 
The stars, the sound of song and dance arose; 
And down the shores In stealthy silence crept, 
Out of the massy forest's emerald gloom, 
The naked, dark-limbed children of the night. 
Unseen, to gaze upon the floating glare 
Of revelry; unheard, to hear that strange 
New music of the gods, where o'er the soft 
Ripple and wash of the lanthorn-crlmsoned tide 
Win Harvest's voice above the chorus rang. 

Song 

In Devonshire, now, the Christmas chime 

Is carolling over the lea; 
And the sexton shovels away the snow 

From the old church porch, maybe; 
And the waits with their lanthorns and noses 
a- glow 

63 



DRAKE 



Come round for their Christmas fee; 
But, as in old England ifs Christmas-time, 
Why, so is it here at sea. 

My lads, 
Why, so is it here at sea! 

When the ship comes home, from turret to poop 

Filled full with Spanish gold, 
There'll be many a country dance and joke, 

And many a tale to be told; 
Every old woman shall have a red cloak 

To fend her against the cold; 
And every old man shall have a big round stoup 

Of jolly good ale and old. 
My lads, 

Jolly good ale and old! 

But on the morrow came a prosperous wind 
Whereof they took advantage, and shook out 
The flashing sails, and held their Christmas feast 
Upon the swirling ridges of the sea: 
And, sweeping Southward with full many a rouse 
And shout of laughter, at the fall of day, 

64 



BOOK II 



While the black prows drove, leapt, and plunged, 

and ploughed 
Through the broad dazzle of sunset-coloured tides, 
Outside the cabin of the Golden Hynde, 
Where Drake and his chief captains dined In 

state, 
The skilled musicians made a great new song. 

Song 

I 
Happy by the hearth sit the lasses and the lads, 
now, 
Roasting of their chestnuts , toasting of their 
toes! 
When the door is opened to a blithe nezv-comer, 
Stamping like a ploughman to shuffle of the 
snows; 
Rosy flower-like faces through the soft red fire^ 
light 
Float as if to greet us, far away at sea, 
Sigh as they remember, and turn the sigh to 
laughter, 

65 



DRAKE 



Kiss beneath the mistletoe and wonder at their 
glee. 

JVith their *' heigh ho, the holly! 

This life is most jolly /^^ 
Christmas-time is kissing-time; 

Away with melancholy I 

II 

Ah, the Yule of England, the happy Yule of 
England, 
Yule of berried holly and the merry mistletoe; 
The hoa/s head, the brown ale, the blue snap- 
dragon. 
Yule of groaning tables and the crimson log 
aglow! 
Yule, the golden bugle to the scattered old 
companions, 
Ringing as with laughter, shining as through 
tears! 
Loved of little children, oh guard the holy Yule- 
tide, 
Guard it, men of England, for the child 
beyond the years, 
66 



BOOK II 



With its ''heigh ho, the holly!'* 
Away with melancholy/ 
Christmas-time is kissing-time, 

'' This life is most jolly!** 

Now to the Fortunate Islands of old time 
They came, and found no glory as of old 
Encircling them, no red ineffable calm 
Of sunset round crowned faces pale with bliss 
Like evening stars; but rugged, waste, and wild 
Those isles were when they neared them, though 

afar 
They beautifully smouldered in the sun 
Like dusky purple jewels fringed and frayed 
With silver foam across that ancient sea 
Of wonder. On the largest of the seven 
Drake landed Doughty with his musketeers 
To exercise their weapons and to seek 
Supplies among the matted uncouth huts 
Which, as the ships drew round each ragged cliff, 
Crept like remembered misery into sight; 
Oh, like the strange dull waking from a dream 
They blotted out the rosy courts and fair 

67 



DRAKE 



Imagined marble thresholds of the King 

Achilles and the heroes that were gone. 

But Drake cared nought for these things. Such 

a heart 
He had, to make each utmost ancient bourne 
Of man's imagination but a point 
Of new departure for his Golden Dream. 
But Doughty with his men ashore, alone. 
Among the sparse wind-bitten groves of palm, 
Kindled their fears of all they must endure 
On that immense adventure. Nay, sometimes 
He hinted of a voyage far beyond 
All history and fable, far beyond 
Even that Void whence only two returned, — 
Columbus, with his men in mutiny; 
Magellan, who could only hound his crew 
Onward by threats of death, until they turned 
In horror from the Threat that lay before, 
Preferring to be hanged as mutineers 
Rather than venture farther. Nor indeed 
Did even Magellan at the last return; 
But, with all hell around him, in the clutch 
Of devils died upon some savage Isle 

68 



BOOK II 



By poisonous black enchantment. Not In vain 
Were Doughty's words on that volcanic shore 
Among the stunted dark acacia trees, 
Whose heads, all bent one way by the trade-wind, 
Pointed Northeast by North, Southwest by West, 
Ambiguous sibyls that with wizened arms 
Mysteriously declared a twofold path. 
Homeward or onward. But aboard the ships, 
Among the hardier seamen, old Tom Moone, 
With one or two stout comrades, overbore 
All doubts and questionings with blither tales 
Of how they sailed to Darlen and heard 
Nightingales In November all night long 
As down a coast like Paradise they cruised 
Through seas of lasting summer, Eden Isles, 
Where birds like rainbows, butterflies like gems, 
And flowers like coloured fires o'er fairy creeks 
Floated and flashed beneath the shadowy palms; 
While ever and anon a bark canoe 
With naked Indian maidens flower-festooned 
Put out from shadowy coves, laden with fruit 
Ambrosial o'er the silken shimmering sea. 
And once a troop of nut-brown maidens came — 

69 



DRAKE 



So said Tom Moone, a twinkle In his eye — 
Swimming to meet them through the warm blue 

waves 
And wantoned through the water, like those 

nymphs 
Which one green April at the Mermaid Inn 
He heard Kit Marlowe mightily pourtray, 
Among his boon companions, In a song 
Of Love that swam the sparkling Hellespont 
Upheld by nymphs, not lovelier than these, — 
Though whiter yet not lovelier than these ; 
For those like flowers, but these like rounded fruit 
Rosily ripening through the clear tides tossed 
From nut-brown breast and arm all round the ship 
The thousand-coloured spray. Shapely of limb 
They were; but as they laid their small brown 

hands 
Upon the ropes we cast them. Captain Drake 
Suddenly thundered at them and bade them pack 
For a troop of naughty wenches ! At that tale 
A tempest of fierce laughter rolled around 
The foc'sle; but one boy from London town, 
A pale-faced prentice, run-away to sea, 

70 



BOOK II 



Asking why Drake had bidden them pack so soon, 
Tom Moone turned to him with his deep-sea 

growl, 
" Because our Captain is no pink-eyed boy 
Nor soft-limbed Spaniard, but a staunch-souled 

Man, 
Full-blooded; nerved like iron; with a girl 
He loves at home in Devon; and a mind 
For ever bent upon some mighty goal, 
I know not what — but 'tis enough for me 
To know my Captain knows." And then he told 
How sometimes o'er the gorgeous forest gloom 
Some marble city, rich, mysterious, white. 
An ancient treasure-house of Aztec kings. 
Or palace of forgotten Incas gleamed; 
And in their dim rich lofty cellars gold. 
Beyond all wildest dreams, great bars of gold. 
Like pillars, tossed in mighty chaos, gold 
And precious stones, agate and emerald, 
Diamond, sapphire, ruby, and sardonyx. 
So said he, as they waited the return 
Of Doughty, resting in the foc'sle gloom. 
Or idly couched about the sun-swept decks 

71 



DRAKE 



On sails or colls of rope, while overhead 
Some boy would climb the rigging and look out, 
Arching his hand to see if Doughty came. 
But when he came, he came with a strange face 
Of feigned despair; and with a stammering tongue 
He vowed he could not find those poor supplies 
Which Drake himself In other days had found 
Upon that self-same island. But, perchance, 
This was a barren year, he said. And Drake 
Looked at him, suddenly, and at the musketeers. 
Their eyes were strained; their faces wore a cloud. 
That night he said no more; but on the morn, 
Mistrusting nothing, Drake with subtle sense 
Of weather-wisdom, through that little fleet 
Distributed his crews anew. And all 
The prisoners and the prizes at those isles 
They left behind them, taking what they would 
From out their carven cabins, — glimmering silks, 
Chiselled Toledo blades, and broad doubloons. 
And, lo! as they weighed anchor, far away 
Behind them on the blue horizon line 
It seemed a city of towering masts arose; 
And from the crow's nest of the Golden Hynde 

72 



BOOK II 



A seaman cried, "By God; the hunt is up!" 
And like a tide of triumph through their veins 
The red rejoicing blood began to race 
As there they saw the avenging ships of Spain, 
Eight mighty galleons, nosing out their trail. 
And Drake growled, "Oh, my lads of Bideford, 
It cuts my heart to show the hounds our heels; 
But we must not imperil our great quest ! 
Such fights as that must wait — as our reward 
When we return. Yet I will not put on 
One stitch of sail. So, lest they are not too slow 
To catch us, clear the decks. God, I should like 
To fight them ! " So the little fleet advanced 
With decks all cleared and shotted guns and men 
"Bare-armed beside them, hungering to be caught, 
And quite distracted from their former doubts ; 
For danger, In that kind, they never feared. 
But soon the heavy Spaniards dropped behind; 
And not in vain had Thomas Doughty sown 
The seeds of doubt; for many a brow grew black 
With sullen-seeming care that erst was gay. 
But happily and in good time there came, 
Not from behind them now, but right in front, 

73 



DRAKE 



On the first sun-down of their quest renewed, 

Just as the sea grew dark around their ships, 

A chance that loosed heart-gnawing doubt in 

deeds. 
For through a mighty zone of golden haze 
Blotting the purple of the gathering night 
A galleon like a floating mountain moved 
To meet them, clad with sunset and with dreams. 
Her masts and spars immense in jewelled mist 
Shimmered : her rigging, like an emerald web 
Of golden spiders, tangled half the stars ! 
Embodied sunset, dragging the soft sky 
O'er dazzled ocean, through the night she drew 
Out of the unknown lands ; and round a prow 
That jutted like a moving promontory 
Over a cloven wilderness of foam, 
Upon a lofty blazoned scroll her name 
San Salvador challenged obsequious isles 
Where'er she rode; who kneeling like dark slaves 
Before some great Sultan must lavish forth 
From golden cornucopias. East and West, 
Red streams of rubies, cataracts of pearl. 
But, at a signal from their admiral, all 

74 



BOOK II 



Those five small ships lay silent in the gloom 
Which, just as if some god were on their side, 
Covered them in the dark troughs of the waves, 
Letting her pass to leeward. On she came, 
Blazing with lights, a City of the Sea, 
Belted with crowding towers and clouds of sail, 
And round her bows a long-drawn thunder rolled 
Splendid with foam; but ere she passed them by, 
Drake gave the word, and with one crimson flash 
Two hundred yards of black and hidden sea 
Leaped into sight between them as the roar 
Of twenty British cannon shattered the night. 
Then after her they drove, like black sea-wolves 
Behind some royal high-branched stag of ten, 
Hanging upon those bleeding foam-flecked flanks, 
Leaping, snarling, worrying, as they went 
In full flight down the wind; for those light ships 
Much speedier than their huge antagonist, 
Keeping to windward, worked their will with her. 
In vain she burnt wild lights and strove to scan 
The darkening deep. Her musketeers In vain 
Provoked the crackling night with random fires: 
In vain her broadside bellowlngs burst at large, 

75 



DRAKE 



As if the Gates of Erebus unrolled. 
For ever and anon the deep-sea gloom 
From some new quarter, like a dragon's mouth 
Opened and belched forth crimson flames and tore 
Her sides as if with iron claws unseen; 
Till, all at once, rough voices close at hand 
Out of the darkness thundered, " Grapple her! " 
And, falling on their knees, the Spaniards knew 
The Dragon of that red Apocalypse. 
There with one awful cry, ElDraque! El Draque! 
They cast their weapons from them ; for the moon 
Rose, eastward, and against her rising black 
Over the bloody bulwarks Francis Drake, 
Grasping the great hilt of his naked sword, 
Towered for a moment to their startled eyes 
Through all the zenith like the King of Hell. 
Then he leaped down upon their shining decks. 
And after him swarmed and towered and leapt in 

haste 
A brawny band of three score Englishmen, 
Gigantic as they loomed against the sky 
And risen, it seemed, by miracle from the sea. 
So small were those five ships below the walls 

76 



BOOK II 



Of that huge floating mountain. Royally 
Drake, from the swart commander's trembling 

hands 
Took the surrendered sword, and bade his men 
Gather the fallen weapons on an heap, 
And placed a guard about them, while the moon 
Silvering the roUing seas for many a mile 
Glanced on the huddled Spaniards' rich attire, 
As like one picture of despair they grouped 
Under the splintered main-mast's creaking shrouds, 
And the great swinging shadows of the sails 
Mysteriously swept the gleaming decks; 
Where many a butt of useless cannon gloomed 
Along the accoutred bulwarks or upturned. 
As the ship wallowed In the heaving deep. 
Dumb mouths of empty menace to the stars. 

Then Drake appointed Doughty, with a guard, 

To sail the prize on to the next dim isle 

Where they might leave her, taking aught they 

would 
From out her carven cabins and rich holds. 
And Doughty's heart leaped in him as he thought, 

77 



DRAKE 



" I have my chance at last"; but Drake, who still 
Trusted the man, made surety doubly sure, 
And in his wary weather-wisdom sent — 
Even as a breathing type of friendship, sent — 
His brother, Thomas Drake, aboard the prize; 
But set his brother, his own flesh and blood, 
Beneath the man, as If to say, *' I give 
My loyal friend dominion over me." 
So courteously he dealt with him ; but he. 
Seeing his chance once more slipping away, 
Raged Inwardly and, from his own false heart 
Imputing his own evil, he contrived 
A cunning charge that night; and when they came 
Next day, at noon, upon the destined isle, 
He suddenly spat the secret venom forth, 
With such fierce wrath in his defeated soul 
That he himself almost believed the charge. 
For when Drake stepped on the San Salvador 
To order all things duly about the prize, 
What booty they must keep and what let go. 
Doughty received him with a blustering voice 
Of red mock-rlghtcous wrath, *' Is this the way 
Englishmen play the pirate, Francis Drake? 

78 



BOOK II 



While thou wast dreaming of thy hero's crown — 
God save the mark ! — thy brother, nay, thy spy, 
Must play the common pilferer, must convert 
The cargo to his uses, rob us all 
Of what we risked our necks to win : he wears 
The ransom of an emperor round his throat 
That might enrich us all. Who saw him wear 
That chain of rubies ere last night ? " 

And Drake, 
"Answer him, brother"; and his brother smiled 
And answered, " Nay, I never wore this chain 
Before last night; but Doughty knows, indeed, 
For he was with me — and none else was there 
But Doughty — *tls my word against his word. 
That close on midnight we were summoned down 
To an English seaman who lay dying below 
Unknown to any of us, a prisoner 
In chains, that had been captured none knew where. 
For all his mind was far from Darien, 
And wandering evermore through Devon lanes 
At home; whom we released; and from his waist 
He took this hidden chain and gave It me, 
Begging me that if ever I returned 

79 



DRAKE 



To Bideford in Devon I would go 
With whatsoever wealth It might produce 
To his old mother, who, with wrinkled hands 
In some small white-washed cottage o'er the sea, 
Where wall-flowers bloom In April, even now 
Is turning pages of the well-worn Book 
And praying for her son's return, nor knows 
That he lies cold upon the heaving main. 
But this he asked; and this In all good faith 
I swore to do; and even now he died, 
And hurrying hither from his side I clasped 
His chain of rubies round my neck awhile, 
In full sight of the sun. I have no more 
To say." Then up spoke Hatton's trumpeter: 
" But I have more to say. Last night I saw 
Doughty, but not In full sight of the sun. 
Nor once, nor twice, but three times at the least. 
Carrying chains of gold, clusters of gems. 
And whatsoever wealth he could convey 
Into his cabin and smuggle In smallest space." 
" Nay," Doughty stammered, mixing sneer and He, 
Yet bolstering up his courage with the thought 
That being what courtiers called a gentleman 

80 



BOOK II 



He ranked above the rude sea-dlscIpline, 

" Nay, they were free gifts from the Spanish crew 

Because I treated them with courtesy." 

Then bluff Will Harvest, " That perchance were 

true, 
For he hath been close closeted for hours 
With their chief officers, drinking their health 
In our own war-bought wine, while down below 
Their captured English seaman groaned his last." 
Then Drake, whose utter silence, with a sense 
Of infinite power and justice, ruled their hearts, 
Suddenly thundered — and the traitor blanched 
And quailed before him. "This my flesh and 

blood 
I placed beneath thee as my dearer self! 
But thou, in trampling on him, shalt not say 
I charge thy brother. Nay, thou chargest me ! 
Against me only hast thou stirred this strife; 
And now, by God, shalt thou learn, once for all. 
That I, thy captain for this voyage, hold 
The supreme power of judgment in my hands. 
Get thee aboard my flagship ! When I come 
I shall have more to say to thee ; but thou, 

8i 



DRAKE 



My brother, take this galleon In thy charge; 
For, as I see, she holdeth all the stores 
Which Doughty failed to find. She shall return 
With us to that New World from which she came. 
But now let these our prisoners all embark 
In yonder pinnace; let them all go free. 
I care not to be cumbered on my way 
Through dead Magellan's unattempted dream 
With chains and prisoners. In that Golden World 
Which means much more to me than I can speak, 
Much more, much more than I can speak or 

breathe. 
Being, behind whatever name it bears — 
Earthly Paradise, Island of the Saints, 
Cathay, or ZIpangu, or Hy BrasU — 
The eternal symbol of my soul's desire, 
A sacred country shining on the sea, 
That Vision without which, the wise king said, 
A people perishes; In that place of hope. 
That TIrn'an Og, that land of lasting youth, 
Where whosoever sails with me shall drink 
Fountains of immortality and dwell 
Beyond the fear of death for evermore, 

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BOOK II 



There shall we see the dust of battle dance 

Everywhere in the sunbeam of God's peace! 

Oh, In the new Atlantis of my soul 

There are no captives: there the wind blows free; 

And, as in sleep, I have heard the marching song 

Of mighty peoples rising in the West, 

Wonderful cities that shall set their foot 

Upon the throat of all old tyrannies; 

And on the West wind I have heard a cry, 

The shoreless cry of the prophetic sea 

Heralding through that golden wilderness 

The Soul whose path our task is to make straight, 

Freedom, the last great Saviour of mankind. 

I know not what I know : these are wild words. 

Which as the sun draws out earth's morning mists 

Over dim fields where careless cattle sleep. 

Some visionary Light, unknown, afar. 

Draws from my darkling soul. Why should we 

drag 
Thither this Old-World weight of utter gloom. 
Or with the ballast of these heavy hearts 
Make sail in sorrow for Pacific Seas? 
Let us leave chains and prisoners to Spain; 

83 



DRAKE 



But set these free to make their own way home ! '^ 
So said he, groping blindly towards the truth, 
And heavy with the treason of his friend. 
His face was like a king's face as he spake, 
For sorrows that strike deep reveal the deep ; 
And through the gateways of a ragged wound 
Sometimes a god will drive his chariot wheels 
From some deep haven within the hearts of men. 
Nevertheless, the Immediate seamen there 
Knowing how great a ransom they might ask 
For some among their prisoners, men of wealth 
And high degree, scarce liked to free them thus; 
And only saw In Drake's conflicting moods 
The moment's whim. " For little will he care," 
They muttered, "when we reach those fabled 

shores. 
Whether his cannon break their golden peace.'* 
Yet to his face they murmured not at all; 
Because his eyes compelled them like a law. 
So there they freed the prisoners and set sail 
Across the earth-shaking shoulders of the broad 
Atlantic, and the great grey slumbrous waves 
Triumphantly swelled up to meet the keels. 

84 



BOOK iir 

Now In the cabin of the Golden Hynde 
At dusk, Drake sent for Doughty. 
From one wall 
The picture of his love looked down 
on him; 
And on the table lay the magic chart, 
Drawn on a buffalo horn, all small peaked isles, 
Dwarf promontories, tiny twisted creeks, 
And fairy harbours under elfin hills. 
With marvellous Inscriptions lined In red, — 
As Here is Gold, or Many Rubies Here, 
Or Ware Witch-crafte, or Here is Cannibals, 
For In his great simplicity the man 
Delighted In It, with the adventurous heart 
Of boyhood poring o'er some well-thumbed tale 
On blue Twelfth Night beside the crimson fire ; 
And o'er him, like the vision of a boy 
In his first knighthood when, upon some hill 
Washed by the silver fringes of the sea, 

85 



DRAKE 



Amidst the purple heather he lies and reads 

Of Arthur and Avilion, like a star 

His love's pure face looked down. There Doughty 

came, 
Half fearful, half defiant, with a crowd 
Of jostling half-excuses on his lips, 
And one dark swarm of adders in his heart. 
For now what light of chivalry remained 
In Doughty's mind was thickening with a plot, 
Subtler and deadlier than the serpent's first 
Attempt on our first sire in Eden bower. 
Drake, with a countenance open as the sun. 
Received him, saying: *' Forgive me, friend, for I 
Was hasty with thee. I wellnigh forgot 
Those large and liberal nights we two have passed 
In this old cabin, telling all our dreams 
And hopes, in friendship, o'er and o'er again. 
But Vicary, thy lawyer friend, hath been 
Pleading with me; and now I understand 
All; so forgive, — for thou art hasty too. 
And hast said things in passion which, 'fore God, 
I would not take from other men alive. 
But now^ — I understand. Thou shalt no more 

86 



BOOK III 



Be vexed with a divided mastership. 

Indeed, I trust thee, Doughty; against all 

Appearances I trust thee. WUt thou not 

Be friends with me? For now In ample proof 

Thou shalt take charge of this my Golden Hynde 

In all things, save of seamanship, which rests 

With the ship's master under my command. 

But I myself will sail upon the prize.'' 

And with the word he gathered up the chart, 

Took down his lady's picture with a smile, 

Gripped Doughty's hand and left him, staring, 

sheer 
Bewildered with that magnanimity 
Of faith, throughout all shadows. In some light 
Unseen behind the shadows. Thus did Drake 
Give up his own fair cabin which he loved; 
Being, it, seemed, a little travelling home, 
Fragrant with memories, — gave It, as he thought. 
In recompense to one whom he had wronged. 
For even as his mind must ever yearn 
To shores beyond the sunset, even so 
He yearned through all dark shadows to his friend. 
And with his greater nature striving still 

87 



DRAKE 



To comprehend the lesser, as the sky 
Embraces our low earth, he would adduce 
Justifications, thus: "These men of law 
Are trained to plead for any and every cause, 
To feign an indignation, or to prove 
The worse is better and that black is white! 
Small wonder that their passion goes astray: 
Ah God, there is one prayer for all of us^ — 
Enter not into judgment with Thy servant!^* 

Yet as his boat pulled towVd the Spanish prize 
Leaving the Golden Hynde, far off he heard 
A voice that chilled him, as the voice of Fate 
Crying like some old Bellman through the world. 

Song 
Yes; oh, yes; if any seek ' 

Laughter flown or lost delight, 
Glancing eye or rosy cheek, 

Love shall claims his own to-night/ 
Say, hath any lost a friend? 
Yes; oh, yes! 
Let his distress 
In my ditty find its end. 
88 



BOOK III 



Yes; oh, yes; here all is found! 

Kingly palaces await 
Each its rightful owner, crowned 

King and consecrate. 
Under the wet and wintry ground! 
Yes; oh, yes! 
There sure redress 
Lies where all is lost and found. 

And Doughty, though Drake's deed of kindness 

flashed 
A moment's kind contrition through his heart, 
Immediately, with all his lawyer's wit, 
True to the cause that hired him, laughed it by. 
And straight began to weave the treacherous web 
Of soft intrigue wherein he meant to snare 
The passions of his comrades. Night and day, 
As that small fleet drove onward o'er the deep. 
Cleaving the sunset with their bright black prows 
Or hunted by the red pursuing Dawn, 
He stirred between the high-born gentlemen 
(Whose white and jewelled hands, gallant in fight, 
And hearts remembering Creqy and Polctlers, 

89 



DRAKE 



Were of scant use in common seamanship), 
Between these and the men whose rough tarred 

arms 
Were good at equal need in storm or war, 
Yet took a poorer portion of the prize, 
He stirred a subtle jealousy and fanned 
A fire that swiftly grew almost to hate. 
For when the seamen must take precedence 
Of loiterers on the deck — through half a word, 
Small, with intense device, like some fierce lens, 
He magnified their rude and blustering mode ; 
Or urged some scented fop, whose idle brain 
Busied itself with momentary whims, 
To bid the master alter here a sail. 
Or there a rope; and, if the man refused, 
Doughty, at night, across the wine-cups, raved 
Against the rising insolence of the mob; 
And hinted Drake himself was half to blame. 
In words that seemed to say, " I am his friend. 
Or I should bid you think him all to blame." 
So fierce indeed the strife became that once. 
While Chester, Doughty's catspaw, played with 

fire, 

90 



BOOK III 



The grim ship-master growled between his teeth, 
" Remember, sir, remember, ere too late, 
Magellan's mutinous vice-admiral's end." 
And Doughty heard, and with a boisterous laugh 
Slapped the old sea-dog on the back and said, 
" The gallows are for dogs, not gentlemen ! " 
Meanwhile his brother, sly John Doughty, sought 
To fan the seamen's fear of the unknown world 
With whispers and conjectures; and, at night. 
He brought old books of Greek and Hebrew down 
Into the foc'sle, claiming by their aid 
A knowledge of Black Art, and power to tell 
The future, which he dreadfully displayed 
There In the flickering light of the oily lamp, 
Bending above their huge and swarthy palms 
And tracing them to many a grisly doom. 

So many a night and day westward they plunged. 
The half-moon ripened to its mellow round, 
Dwindled again and ripened yet again. 
And there was nought around them but the grey 
Ruin and roar of huge Atlantic seas. 
And only like a memory of the world 

91 



DRAKE 



They left behind them rose the same great sun, 
And daily rolled his chariot through their sky, 
Whereof the skilled musicians made a song. 



Song 

The same sun is o'er us, 

The same Love shall find us. 
The same and none other. 
Wherever we be; 
With the same goal before us. 
The same home behind us, 
England, our mother, 

Ringed round with the sea. 

When the breakers charged thundering 
In thousands all round us 
With a lightning of lances 
Uphurtled on high. 
When the stout ships were sundering 
A rapture hath crowned us, 
Like the wild light that dances 
On the crests that flash by. 
92 



BOOK III 



When the waters lay breathless 
Gazing at Hesper 
Guarding the golden 
Fruit of the tree, 
Heard we the deathless 
Wonderful whisper 
Wafting the olden 
Dream of the sea. 

No land in the ring of it 
Now, all around us 
Only the splendid 
Resurging unknown! 
How should we sing of it? — 
This that hath found us 
By the great sun attended 
In splendour, alone. 

Ah! the broad miles of it, 
White with the onset 

Of waves without number 
Warring for glee. 
Ah ! the soft smiles of it 
93 



DRAKE 



Down to the sunset, 
Holy for slumber, 
The peace of the sea. 

The wave's heart, exalted, 
Leaps forward to meet us, 
The sun on the sea-wave 
Lies white as the moon : 
The soft sapphire-vaulted 

Deep heaven smiles to greet us. 
Free sons of the free-wave 
All singing one tune. 

The same sun is o^er tis^ 

The same Love shall find us, 
The same and none other, 
Wherever we he; 
With the same goal before us, 
The same home behind us, 
England, our mother, 
Queen of the sea. 

At last a faint-flushed April Dawn arose 
With milk-white arms upblnding golden clouds 

94 



BOOK III 



Of fragrant hair behind her lovely head; 
And, lo! before the bright black plunging prows 
The whole sea suddenly shattered Into shoals 
Of rolling porpoises. Everywhere they tore 
The glittering water. Like a moving crowd 
Of black bright rocks washed smooth by foaming 

tides, 
They thrilled the unconscious fancy of the crews 
With subtle, wild, and living hints of land. 
And soon Columbus' happy signals came. 
The signs that saved him when his mutineers 
Despaired at last and clamoured to return, — 
And there, with awe triumphant In their eyes, 
They saw, lazily tossing on the tide, 
A drift of seaweed and a berried branch, 
Which silenced them as If they had seen a Hand 
Writing with fiery letters on the deep. 
Then a black cormorant, vulture of the sea. 
With neck outstretched and one long ominous 

honk, 
Went hurtling past them to its unknown bourne. 
A mighty white-winged albatross came next; 
Then flight on flight of clamorous clanging gulls; 

95 



DRAKE 



And last, a wild and sudden shout of " Land I " 

Echoed from crew to crew across the waves. 

Then, dumb upon the rigging as they hung 

Staring at it, a menace chilled their blood. 

For like // Gran Nemico of Dante, dark. 

Ay, coloured like a thunder-cloud, from North 

To South, in front, there slowly rose to sight 

A country like a dragon fast asleep 

Along the West, with wrinkled, purple wings 

Ending in ragged forests o'er its spine ; 

And with great craggy claws out-thrust, that turned 

(As the dim distances dissolved their veils) 

To promontories bounding a huge bay. 

There o'er the hushed and ever shallower tide 

The staring ships drew nigh and thought, " Is this 

The Dragon of our Golden Apple Tree, 

The guardian of the fruit of our desire, 

Which grows in gardens of the Hesperides, 

Where those three sisters weave a white-armed 

dance 
Around it everlastingly, and sing 
Strange songs in a strange tongue that still convey 
Warning to heedful souls? " Nearer they drew, 

96 



BOOK III 



And now, indeed, from out a soft blue-grey 
Mingling of colours on that coast's deep flank 
There crept a garden of enchantment, height 
O'er height, a garden sloping from the hills, 
Wooded as with Aladdin's trees that bore 
All-coloured clustering gems instead of fruit; 
Now vaster as it grew upon their eyes, 
And like some Roman amphitheatre 
Cirque above mighty cirque all round the bay. 
With jewels and flowers ablaze on women's breasts 
Innumerably confounded and confused; 
While lovely faces flushed with lust of blood. 
Rank above rank upon their tawny thrones 
In soft barbaric splendour lapped, and lulled 
By the low thunderings of a thousand lions, 
Luxuriously smiled as they bent down 
Over the scarlet-splashed and steaming sands 
To watch the white-limbed gladiators die. 

Such fears and dreams for Francis Drake, at least, 
Rose and dissolved in his nigh fevered brain 
As they drew near that equatorial shore; 
For rumours had been borne to him; and now 

97 



DRAKE 



He knew not whether to impute the wrong 
To his untrustful mind or to believe 
Doughty a traitorous liar; for the sense 
Of his own friendship towards him made it hard 
To understand that treachery; yet there seemed 
Proof and to spare. A thousand shadows rose 
To mock him with their veiled indicative hands. 
And each alone he laid and exorcised 
With ease; but ah, not all, not all at once. 
And for each doubt he banished, one returned 
From darker depths to mock him o'er again. 

So, in that bay, the little fleet sank sail 

And anchored; and the wild reality 

Behind those dreams towered round them on the 

hills, 
Or so it seemed. And Drake bade lower a boat. 
And went ashore with sixteen men to seek 
Water; and, as they neared the embowered beach. 
Over the green translucent tide there came, 
A hundred yards from land, a drowsy sound 
Immeasurably repeated and prolonged, 
As of innumerable elfin drums 

98 



BOOK III 



Dreamily mustering In the tropic bloom. 
This from without they heard, across the waves ; 
But when they glided Into a flowery creek 
Under the sharp black shadows of the trees — 
Jaca and Mango and Palm and red festoons 
Of garlanded Liana wreaths — It ebbed 
Into the murmur of the mighty fronds, 
Prodigious leaves whose velnlngs bore the fresh 
Impression of the finger-prints of God. 
There humming-birds, like flakes of purple fire 
Upon some passing seraph's plumage, beat 
And quivered In blinding blots of golden light 
Between the embattled cactus and cardoon; 
While one huge whisper of primaeval awe 
Seemed to await the cool green eventide 
When God should walk His Garden as of old. 
Now as the boats were plying to and fro 
Between the ships and that enchanted shore, 
Drake bade his comrades tarry a little and went 
Apart, alone, into the trackless woods. 
Tormented with his thoughts, he saw all round 
Once more the battling Image of his mind, 
Where there was nought of man, only the vast 

99 



DRAKE 



Unending silent struggle of Titan trees, 
Large Internecine twistlngs of the world, 
The hushed death-grapple and the still Intense 
Locked anguish of Laocoons that gripped 
Death by the throat for thrice three hundred years. 
Once, like a subtle mockery overhead. 
Some black-armed chattering ape swung swiftly by, 
But he strode onward, thinking — " Was It false, 
False all that kind outreaching of the hands? 
False? Was there nothing certain, nothing sure 
In those divlnest aisles and towers of Time 
Wherein we took sweet counsel ? Is there nought 
Sure but the solid dust beneath our feet? 
Must all those lovelier fabrics of the soul, 
Being so divinely bright and delicate. 
Waver and shine no longer than some poor 
Prismatic aery bubble? Ay, they burst, 
And all their glory shrinks Into one tear 
No bitterer than some Idle love-lorn maid 
Sheds for her dead canary. God, It hurts. 
This, this hurts most, to think how we must miss 
What might have been, for nothing but a breath, 
A babbling of the tongue, an argument, 

100 



BOOK III 



Or such a poor contention as involves 
The thrones and dominations of this earth, — 
How many of us, like seed on barren ground, 
Must miss the flower and harvest of their prayers. 
The living light of friendship and the grasp 
Which for its very meaning once implied 
Eternities of utterance and the life 
Immortal of two souls beyond the grave? " 

Now, wandering upward ever, he reached and 

clomb 
The slope side of a fern-fringed precipice, 
And, at the summit, found an open glade. 
Whence, looking o'er the forest, he beheld 
The sea ; and, in the land-locked bay below, 
Far, far below, his elfin-tiny ships, 
All six at anchor on the crawling tide ! 
Then onward, upward, through the woods once 

more 
He plunged with bursting heart and burning brow ; 
And, once again, like madness, the black shapes 
Of doubt swung through his brain and chattered 

and laughed, 

lOI 



DRAKE 



Till he upstretched his arms in agony 

And cursed the name of Doughty, cursed the day 

They met, cursed his false face and courtier 

smiles; 
" For oh," he cried, ** how easy a thing it were 
For truth to wear the garb of truth ! This proves 
His treachery! " And there, at once, his thoughts 
Tore him another way, as thus, " And yet 
If he were false, is he not subtle enough 
To hide it? Why, this proves his innocence — 
This very courtly carelessness which I, 
Black-hearted evil-thinker as I am, 
In my own clumsier spirit so misjudge I 
These children of the court are butterflies 
Fluttering hither and thither, and I — poor fool — 
Would fix them to a stem and call them flowers, 
Nay, bid them grasp the ground-like towering oaks 
And shadow all the zenith; " and yet again 
The madness of distrustful friendship gleamed 
From his fierce eyes, " Oh, villain, damned villain, 
God's murrain on his heart ! I know full well 
He hides what he can hide I He wears no fault 
Upon the gloss and frippery of his breast I 

1 03 



BOOK III 



It Is not that ! It is the hidden things, 
Unselzable, the things I do not know: 
Ay, It Is these, these, these and these alone 
That I mistrust." 

And, as he walked, the skies 
Grew full of threats, and now enormous clouds 
Rose mammoth-like above the ensanguined deep, 
Trampling the daylight out; and, with Its death 
Dyed purple, rushed along as If they meant 
To obliterate the world. He took no heed. 
Though that strange blackness brimmed the 

branching aisles 
With horror, he strode on till In the gloom, 
Just as his winding way came out once more 
Over a precipice that o'erlooked the bay, 
There, as he went, not gazing down, but up. 
He saw what seemed a ponderous granite cliff, 
A huge ribbed shell upon a lonely shore 
Left by forgotten mountains when they sank 
Back to earth's breast like billows on a sea. 
A tall and whispering crowd of tree-ferns waved 
Mysterious fringes round it. In their midst 
He flung himself at its broad base, with one 

103 



DRAKE 



Sharp shivering cry of pain, *' Show me Thy ways, 
O God, teach me Thy paths ! I am in the dark ! 
Lighten my darkness ! " 

Almost as he spoke 
There swept across the forest, far and wide, 
Gathering power and volume as it came, 
A sound as of a rushing mighty wind; 
And, overhead, like great black gouts of blood 
Wrung from the awful forehead of the Night 
The first drops fell and ceased. Then, suddenly, 
Out of the darkness, earth with all her seas, 
Her little ships at anchor in the bay 
(Five ebony ships upon a sheet of silver, 
Drake saw not that, indeed, Drake saw not that !) , 
Her woods, her boughs, her leaves, her tiniest 

twigs. 
Leapt like a hunted stag through one immense 
Lightning of revelation into the murk 
Of Erebus: then heaven o'er rending heaven 
Shattered and crashed down ruin over the world. 
But, in that deeper darkness, Francis Drake 
Stood upright now, and with blind outstretched 

arms 
Groped at that strange forgotten cliff and shell 

104 



BOOK III 



Of mystery; for in that flash of light 
iEons had passed; and now the Thing in front 
Made his blood freeze with memories that lay 
Behind his Memory. In the gloom he groped, 
And with dark hands that knew not what they 

knew, 
As one that shelters in the night, unknowing, 
Beneath a stranded shipwreck, with a cry 
He touched the enormous rain-washed belted ribs 
And bones like battlements of some Mastodon 
Embedded there until the trump of doom. 

After long years, long centuries, perchance, 

Triumphantly some other pioneer 

Would stand where Drake now stood and read the 

tale 
Of ages where he only felt the cold 
Touch in the dark of some huge mystery; 
Yet Drake might still be nearer to the light 
Who now was whispering from his great deep 

heart, 
" Show me Thy ways, O God, teach me Thy 

paths!" 
And there by some strange instinct, oh, he felt 

105 



DRAKE 



God's answer there, as if he grasped a hand 

Across a gulf of twice ten thousand years; 

And he regained his lost magnificence 

Of faith in that great Harmony which resolves 

Our discords, faith through all the ruthless laws 

Of nature in their lovely pitilessness. 

Faith in that Love which outwardly must wear, 

Through all the sorrows of eternal change, 

The splendour of the indifference of God. 

All round him through the heavy purple gloom 

Sloped the soft rush of silver-arrowed rain, 

Loosening the skies' hard anguish as with tears. 

Once more he felt his unity with all 

The vast composure of the universe, 

And drank deep at the fountains of that peace 

Which comprehends the tumult of our days. 

But with that peace the power to act returned; 

And, with his back against the Mastodon, 

He stared through the great darkness tow'rds the 

sea. 
The rain ceased for a moment : only the slow 
Drip of the dim droop-feathered palms all round 

io6 



BOOK III 



Deepened the hush. 

Then, out of the gloom once more 
The whole earth leapt to sight with all her woods, 
Her boughs, her leaves, her tiniest twigs distinct 
For one wild moment; but Drake only saw 
The white flash of her seas, and there, oh there 
That land-locked bay with those five elfin ships, 
Five elfin ebony ships upon a sheet 
Of wrinkled silver ! Then, as the thunder 

followed, 
One thought burst through his brain — 

Where was the sixth? 
Over the grim precipitous edge he hung. 
An eagle waiting for the lightning now 
To swoop upon his prey. One iron hand 
Gripped a rough tree-root like a bunch of snakes; 
And, as the rain rushed round him, far away 
He saw to northward yet another flash, 
A scribble of God's finger in the sky 
Over a waste of white stampeding waves. 
His eye flashed like a falchion as he saw it, 
And from his lips there burst the sea-king's laugh ; 
For there, with a fierce joy he knew, he knew 

107 



DRAKE 



Doughty, at last — an open mutineer! 

An open foe to fight ! Ay, there she went,— 

His Golden Hynde, his little Golden Hynde 

A wild deserter scudding to the North. 

And, almost ere the lightning, Drake had gone 

Crashing down the face of the precipice, 

By a narrow water-gully, and through the huge 

Forest he tore the straight and perilous way 

Down to the shore; while, three miles to the 

North, 
Upon the wet poop of the Golden Hynde 
Doughty stood smiling. Scarce would he have 

smiled 
Knowing that Drake had seen him from that tower 
Amidst the thunders ; but, Indeed, he thought 
He had escaped unseen admldst the storm. 
Many a day he had worked upon the crew, 
Fanning their fears and doubts until he won 
The more part to his side. And when they 

reached 
That coast, he showed them how Drake meant to 

sail 
Southward, into the unknown Void ; but he 

io8 



BOOK III 



Would have them suddenly slip by stealth away 
Northward to Darlen, showing them what a life 
Of golden glory waited for them there, 
If, laying aside this empty quest, they joined 
The merry feasters round those Island fires 
Which over many a dark-blue creek illumed 
Buccaneer camps in scarlet logwood groves, 
Fringing the Gulf of Mexico, till dawn 
Summoned the Black Flags out to sweep the sea. 

But when Drake reached the flower-embowered 

boat 
And found the men awaiting his return 
There, In a sheltering grove of bread-fruit trees 
Beneath great eaves of leafage that obscured 
Their sight, but kept the storm out, as they tossed 
Pieces of eight or rattled the bone dice. 
His voice went through them like a thunderbolt, 
For none of them had seen the Golden Hynde 
Steal from the bay ; and now the billows burst 
Like cannon down the coast ; and they had thought 
Their boat could not be launched until the storm 
Abated. Under Drake's compelling eyes, 

109 



DRAKE 



Nevertheless, they poled her down the creek 
Without one word, waiting their chance. 

Then all 
Together with their brandished oars they thrust, 
And on the fierce white out-draught of a wave 
They shot up, up and over the toppling crest 
Of the next, and plunged crashing Into the vale 
Behind it: then they settled at their thwarts, 
And the fierce water boiled before their blades 
As, with Drake's Iron hand upon the helm, 
They soared and crashed across the rolling seas. 

Not for the Spanish prize did Drake now steer, 
But for that little ship the Mary gold, 
Swiftest of sail, next to the Golden Hynde, 
And, in the hands of Francis Drake, indeed 
Swiftest of all; and ere the seamen knew 
What power, as of a wind, bore them along, 
Anchor was up, their hands were on the sheets, 
The sails were broken out, the Mary gold 
Was flying like a storm-cloud to the North, 
And on her poop an iron statue still 
As death stood Francis Drake. 

no 



BOOK III 



One hour they rushed 
Northward, with green seas washing o'er the deck 
And buffeted with splendour ; then they saw 
The Golden Hynde like some wing-broken gull 
With torn mismanaged plumes beating the air 
In peril of utter shipwreck; saw her fly 
Half-mast, a feeble signal of distress 
Despite all Doughty's curses ; for her crew 
With wild divisions torn amongst themselves 
Most gladly now surrendered In their hearts, 
As close alongside grandly onward swept 
The Mary gold, with canvas trim and taut 
Magnificently drawing the full wind, 
Her gunners waiting at their loaded guns 
Bare-armed and silent; and that Iron soul 
Alone, upon her silent quarter-deck. 
There they hauled up Into the wind and lay 
Rocking, while Drake, alone, without a guard, 
Boarding the runaway, dismissed his boat 
Back to the Marygold, Then his voice outrang 
Trumpet-like o'er the trembling mutineers. 
And clearly, as if they were but busied still 
About the day's routine. They hid their shame, 

III 



DRAKE 



As men that would propitiate a god, 

By flying to fulfil his lightest word; 

And ere they knew what power, as of a wind 

Impelled them> — that half wreck was trim and 

taut, 
Her sails all drawing and her bows afoam ; 
And, creeping past the Mary gold once more. 
She led their Southward way! And not till then 
Did Drake vouchsafe one word to the white face 
Of Doughty, as he furtively slunk nigh 
With some new lie upon his fear-parched lips 
Thirsting for utterance In his crackling laugh 
Of deprecation; and with one ruffling puff 
Of pigeon courage in his blinded soul — 
*' I am no sea-dog — even Francis Drake 
Would scarce misuse a gentleman. Thank God 
I am a gentleman ! " And there Drake turned 
And summoned four swart seamen out by name. 
His words went like a cold wind through their 

flesh 
As with a passionless voice he slowly said, 
'' Take ye this fellow: bind him to the mast 
Until what time I shall decide his fate." 

112 



BOOK III 



And Doughty gasped as at the world's blank 

end, — 
" Nay, Francis," cried he, " wilt thou thus misuse 
A gentleman?" But as the seamen gripped 
His arms he struggled vainly and furiously 
To throw them off ; and in his impotence 
Let slip the whole of his treacherous cause and 

hope 
In empty wrath, — " Fore God," he foamed and 

snarled, 
*' Ye shall all smart for this when we return! 
Unhand me, dogs ! I have Lord Burleigh's power 
Behind me. There is nothing I have done 
Without his warrant ! Ye shall smart for this ! 
Unhand me, I say, unhand me!" 

And in one flash 
Drake saw the truth, and Doughty saw his eyes 
Lighten upon him; and his false heart quailed 
Once more ; and he suddenly suffered himself 
Quietly, strangely, to be led away 
And bound without a murmur to the mast. 
And strangely Drake remembered, as those words, 
*' Ye shall all smart for this when we return," 

113 



DRAKE 



Yelped at his faith, how while the Dover cliffs 
Faded from sight he leaned to his new friend 
Doughty and said: *' I blame them not who stay! 
I blame them not at all who cling to home, 
For many of us, indeed, shall not return. 
Nor ever know that sweetness any more." 

And when they had reached their anchorage anew, 
Drake, having now resolved to bring his fleet 
Beneath a more compact control, at once 
Took all the men and the chief guns and stores 
From out the Spanish prize; and sent Tom Moone 
To set the hulk afire. Also he bade 
Unbind the traitor and ordered him aboard 
The pinnace Christopher, John Doughty, too, 
He ordered thither, into the grim charge 
Of old Tom Moone, thinking it best to keep 
The poisonous leaven carefully apart 
Until they had won well Southward, to a place 
Where, finally committed to their quest, 
They might arraign the traitor without fear 
Or favour, and acquit him or condemn. 
But those two brothers, doubting as the false 

114 




William Cecil, Lord Burleigh 

From the Original Fainting by Mark Gerard 



BOOK III 



Are damned to doubt, saw murder In his eyes, 
And thought " He means to sink the smack one 

night," 
And they refused to go, till Drake abruptly 
Ordered them straightway to be slung on board 
With ropes. 

The daylight waned; but ere the sun 
Sank, the five ships were plunging to the South ; 
For Drake would halt no longer, lest the crews 
Also should halt betwixt two purposes. 
He took the tide of fortune at the flood; 
And onward through the now subsiding storm, 
Ere they could think what power as of a wind 
Impelled them, he had swept them on their way. 
Far, far Into the night they saw the blaze 
That leapt In crimson o'er the abandoned hulk 
Behind them, like a mighty hecatomb 
Marking the path of some Titanic will. 
Many a night and day they Southward drove. 
Sometimes at midnight round them all the sea 
Quivered with witches' oils and water-snakes, 
Green, blue, and red, with lambent tongues of fire. 
Mile upon mile about the blurred black hulls 

115 



DRAKE 



A cauldron of tempestuous colour coiled. 
On every mast mysterious meteors burned, 
And from the shores a bellowing rose and fell 
As of great bestial gods that walked all night 
Through some wild hell unknown, too vast for 

men; 
But when the silver and crimson of the dawn 
Broke out, they saw the tropic shores anew, 
The fair white foam, and, round about the rocks, 
Weird troops of tusked sea-lions; and the world 
Mixed with their dreams and made them stranger 

still. 
And, once, so fierce a tempest scattered the fleet 
That even the hardiest souls began to think 
There was a Jonah with them ; for the seas 
Rose round them like green mountains, peaked and 

ridged 
With heights of Alpine snow amongst the clouds ; 
And many a league to Southward, when the ships 
Gathered again amidst the sinking waves 
Four only met. The ship of Thomas Drake 
Was missing; and some thought it had gone down 
With all hands in the storm. But Francis Drake 

ii6 



BOOK III 



Held on his way, learning from hour to hour 
To merge himself In Immortality; 
Learning the secret of those pitiless laws 
Which dwarf all mortal grief, all human pain, 
To something less than nothing by the side 
Of that eternal travail dimly guessed, 
Since first he felt In the miraculous dark 
The great bones of the Mastodon, that hulk 
Of Immemorial death. He learned to judge 
The passing pageant of this outward world 
As by the touch-stone of that memory; 
Even as In that country which some said 
Lay now not far, the great Tezcucan king. 
Resting his jewelled hand upon a skull, 
And on a smouldering glory of jewels throned 
There In his temple of the Unknown God 
Over the host of Aztec princes, clad 
In golden hauberks gleaming under soft 
Surcoats of green or scarlet feather-work, 
Could In the presence of a mightier power 
Than life or death give up his guilty sons, 
His only sons, to the sacrificial sword. 
And hour by hour the soul of Francis Drake, 

117 



DRAKE 



Unconscious as an oak-tree of its growth, 
Increased in strength and stature as he drew 
Earth, heaven, and hell within him, more and 

more. 
For as the dream we call our world, with all 
Its hues Is but a picture In the brain, 
So did his soul enfold the universe 
With gradual sense of superhuman power, 
While every visible shape within the vast 
Horizon seemed the symbol of some thought 
Waiting for utterance. He had found indeed 
God's own Nirvana, not of empty dream 
But of intensest life ! Nor did he think 
Aught of all this; but, as the rustic deems 
The colours that he carries In his brain 
Are somehow all outside him while he peers 
Unaltered through two windows in his face, 
Drake only knew that as the four ships plunged 
Southward, the world mysteriously grew 
More like a prophet's vision, hour by hour. 
Fraught with dark omens and significances, 
A world of hieroglyphs and sacred signs 
Wherein he seemed to read the truth that lay 

ii8 



BOOK III 



Hid from the Roman augurs when of old 
They told the future from the flight of birds. 
How vivid with disaster seemed the flight 
Of those blood-red flamingoes o'er the dim 
Blue steaming forest, like two terrible thoughts 
Flashing, unapprehended, through his brain! 

And now, as they drove Southward, day and night, 
Through storm and calm, the shores that fleeted by 
Grew wilder, grander, with his growing soul. 
And pregnant with the approaching mystery. 
And now along the Patagonlan coast 
They cruised, and in the solemn midnight saw 
Wildernesses of shaggy, barren marl, 
Petrified seas of lava, league on league, 
Craters and bouldered slopes and granite cliffs 
With ragged rents, grim gorges, deep ravines, 
And precipice on precipice up-piled 
Innumerable to those dim distances 
Where, over valleys hanging In the clouds. 
Gigantic mountains and volcanic peaks 
Catching the wefts of cirrhus fleece appeared 
To smoke against the sky, though all was now 

119 



DRAKE 



Dead as that frozen chaos of the moon, 
Or some huge passion of a slaughtered soul 
Prostrate under the marching of the stars. 

At last, and in a silver dawn, they came 
Suddenly on a broad-winged estuary, 
And, in the midst of It, an Island lay. 
There they found shelter, on Its leeward side, 
And Drake convened upon the Golden Hynde 
His dread court-martial. Two long hours he 

heard 
Defence and accusation, then broke up 
The conclave, and, with burning heart and brain, 
Feverishly seeking everywhere some sign 
To guide him, went ashore upon that Isle, 
And, lo ! turning a rugged point of rock, 
He rubbed his eyes to find out If he dreamed, 
For there — a Crusoe's wonder, a miracle, 
A sign — before him stood on that lone strand 
Stark, with a stern arm pointing out his way 
And jangling still one withered skeleton. 
The grim black gallows where Magellan hanged 
His mutineers. Its base was white with bones 

120 



BOOK III 



Picked by the gulls, and crumbling o'er the sand 
A dread sea-salt, dry from the tides of time. 
There, on that lonely shore. Death's finger-post 
Stood like some old forgotten truth made strange 
By the long lapse of many memories, 
All starting up In resurrection now 
As at the trump of doom, heroic ghosts 
Out of the cells and graves of his deep brain 
Reproaching him. '' Were this man not thy friend, 
Ere now he should have died the traitor^ s death. 
What wilt thou say to the others if they, too, 
Prove false? Or wilt thou slay the lesser and save 
The greater sinner? Nay, if thy right hand 
Of end thee, cut it of! '^ And, in one flash, 
Drake saw his path and chose it. 

With a voice 
Low as the passionless anguished voice of Fate 
That comprehends all pain, but girds It round 
With Iron, lest some random cry break out 
For man's misguidance, he drew all his men 
Around him, saying, " Ye all know how I loved 
Doughty, who hath betrayed me twice, and thrice, 
For I still trusted him : he was no felon 

121 



DRAKE 



That I should turn my heart away from him I 

He is the type and image of man's laws ; 

While I — am lawless as the soul that still 

Must sail and seek a world beyond the worlds, 

A law behind earth's laws. I dare not judge ! 

But ye — who know the mighty goal we seek, 

Who have seen him sap our courage, hour by hour. 

Till God Himself almost appeared a dream 

Behind his technicalities and doubts 

Of aught he could not touch or handle; ye 

Who have seen him stir up jealousy and strife 

Between our seamen and our gentlemen, 

Even as the world stirs up continual strife, 

Bidding the man forget he Is a man 

With God's own patent of nobility; 

Ye who have seen him strike this last sharp blow- — 

Sharper than any enemy hath struck, — 

Ay, Jonathan, mine own familiar friend, 

He whom I trusted, he alone could strike 

So sharply, for Indeed I loved this man. 

Judge ye — for see, I cannot. Do not doubt 

I loved this man I 

But now, if ye will let him have his life, 

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BOOK III 



Oh, speak ! But, if ye think It must be death, 
Hold up your hands in silence I " His voice 

dropped, 
And eagerly he whispered forth one word 
Beyond the scope of Fate — " Yet, oh, my friends, 
I would not have him die ! '' There was no sound 
Save the long thunder of eternal seas, — 
Drake bowed his head and prayed. 

Then, suddenly, 
One man upheld his hand ; and, all at once, 
A brawny forest of brown arms arose 
In silence, and the great sea whispered Death. 

There, with one big swift impulse, Francis Drake 
Held out his right sun-blackened hand and gripped 
The hand that Doughty proffered him ; and, lo ! 
Doughty laughed out and said, " Since I must die, 
Let us have one more hour of comradeship. 
One hour as old companions. Let us make 
A feast here, on this island, ere I go 
Where there is no more feasting." So they made 
A great and solemn banquet as the day 
Decreased; and Doughty bade them all unlock 

123 



DRAKE 



Their sea-chests and bring out their rich array. 
There, by that wondering ocean of the West, 
In crimson doublets, lined and slashed with gold, 
In broidered lace and double golden chains 
Embossed with rubies and great cloudy pearls 
They feasted, gentleman adventurers, 
Drinking old malmsey, as the sun sank down. 

Now Doughty, fronting the rich death of day. 
And flourishing a silver pouncet-box 
With many a courtly jest and rare conceit, 
There as he sat in rich attire, outbraved 
The rest. Though darker-hued, yet richer far. 
His murrey-coloured doublet double-piled 
Of Genoa velvet, puffed with ciprus, shone; 
For over its grave hues the gems that bossed 
His golden collar, wondrously relieved, 
Blazed lustrous to the West like stars. But Drake 
Wore simple black, with midnight silver slashed, 
And, at his side, a great two-handed sword. 
At last they rose, just as the sun's last rays 
Rested upon the heaving molten gold 
Immeasurable. The long slow sigh of the waves 

124 



BOOK III 



That creamed across the lonely time-worn reef 
All round the Island seemed the very voice 
Of the Everlasting : black against the sea 
The gallows of Magellan stretched Its arm 
With that gaunt skeleton and Its rusty chain 
Creaking and swinging in the solemn breath 
Of eventide like some strange pendulum 
Measuring out the moments that remained. 
There did they take the holy sacrament 
Of Jesus' body and blood. Then Doughty and 

Drake 
Kissed each other, as brothers, on the cheek; 
And Doughty knelt; and Drake, without one 

word, 
Leaning upon the two-edged naked sword 
Stood at his side, with iron lips, and eyes 
Full of the sunset ; while the doomed man bowed 
His head upon a rock. The great sun dropped 
Suddenly, and the land and sea were dark; 
And as it were a sign, Drake hfted up 
The gleaming sword. It seemed to sweep the 

heavens 
Down In Its arc as he smote, once, and no more. 

125 



DRAKE 



Then, for a moment, silence froze their veins. 

Till one fierce seaman stooped with a hoarse cry; 

And, like an eagle clutching up its prey. 

His arm swooped down and bore the head aloft, 

Gorily streaming, by the long dark hair; 

And a great shout went up, " So perish all 

Traitors to God and England ! " Then Drake 

turned 
And bade them to their ships ; and, wondering, 
They left him. As the boats thrust out from shore 
Brave old Tom Moone looked back with faithful 

eyes 
Like a great mastiff to his master's face. 
He, looming larger from his loftier ground 
Clad with the slowly gathering night of stars 
And gazing seaward o'er his quiet dead, 
Seemed like some Titan bronze in grandeur based 
Unshakeable until the crash of doom 
Shattered the black foundations of the world. 



126 



BOOK IV 

DAWN, everlasting and almighty Dawn, 
Hailed by ten thousand names of 
death and birth. 
Who, chiefly by thy name of Sorrow, 
seem'st 
To half the world a sunset, God's great Dawn, 
Fair light of all earth's partings till we meet 
Where Dawn and sunset, mingling East and West, 
Shall make In some deep Orient of the soul 
One radiant Rose of Love for evermore; 
Teach me, oh teach to bear thy broadening light. 
Thy deepening wonder, lest as old dreams fade 
With love's unfaith, like wasted hours of youth 
And dim Illusions vanish in thy beam. 
Their rapture and their anguish break that heart 
Which loved them, and must love for ever now. 
Let thy great sphere of splendour, ring by ring 
For ever widening, draw new seas, new skies, 
Within my ken ; yet, as I still must bear 
This love, help me to grow In spirit with thee, 

127 



DRAKE 



Dawn on my song which trembles like a cloud 
Pierced with thy beauty. Rise, shine, as of old 
Across the wondering ocean in the sight 
Of those world-wandering mariners, when earth 
Rolled flat up to the Gates of Paradise, 
And each slow mist that curled Its gold away 
From each new sea they furrowed Into pearl 
Might bring before their blinded mortal eyes 
God and the Glory. Lighten as on the soul 
Of him that all night long In torment dire, 
Anguish and thirst unceasing for thy ray 
Upon that lonely Patagonlan shore 
Had lain as on the bitterest coasts of Hell. 
For all night long, mocked by the dreadful peace 
Of world-wide seas that darkly heaved and sank 
With cold recurrence, like the slow sad breath 
Of a fallen Titan dying all alone 
In lands beyond all human loneliness, 
While far and wide glimmers that broken targe 
Hurled from tremendous battle with the gods. 
And, as he breathes In pain, the chain-mail rings 
Round his broad breast a muffled rattling make 
For many a league, so seemed the sound of waves 

128 



BOOK IV 



Upon those beaches — there, be-mocked all night, 
Beneath Magellan's gallows, Drake had watched 
Beside his dead; and over him the stars 
Paled as the silver chariot of the moon 
Drove, and her white steeds ramped In a fury of 

foam 
On splendid peaks of cloud. The Golden Hynde 
Slept with those other shadows on the bay. 
Between him and his home the Atlantic heaved; 
And, on the darker side, across the strait 
Of starry sheen that softly rippled and flowed 
Betwixt the mainland and his Isle, It seemed 
Death's Gates Indeed burst open. The night 

yawned 
Like a foul wound. Black shapes of the outer 

dark 
Poured out of forests older than the world; 
And, just as reptiles that take form and hue, 
Speckle and blotch. In strange assimilation 
From thorn and scrub and stone and the waste 

earth 
Through which they crawl, so that almost they 

seem 

129 



DRAKE 



The incarnate spirits of their wilderness, 
Were these most horrible kindred of the night. 
iEonian glooms unfathomable, grim aisles. 
Grotesque, distorted boughs and dancing shades 
Outbelched their dusky brood on the dim shore; 
Monsters with sooty limbs, red-raddled eyes, 
And faces painted yellow, women and men; 
Fierce naked giants howling to the moon, 
And loathlier Gorgons with long, snaky tresses 
Pouring vile purple over pendulous breasts 
Like wine-bags. On the mainland beach they lit 
A brushwood fire that reddened creek and cove 
And lapped their swarthy limbs with hideous 

tongues 
Of flame; so near that by their light Drake saw 
The blood upon the dead man's long black hair 
Clotting corruption. The fierce funeral pyre 
Of all things fair seemed rolling on that shore; 
And in that dull, red battle of smoke and flame, 
While the sea crunched the pebbles, and dark 

drums 
Rumbled out of the gloom as if this earth 
Had some Titanic tigress for a soul 
Purring In forests of Eternity 

130 



BOOK IV 



Over her own grim dreams, his lonely spirit 
Passed through the circles of a world-wide waste 
Darker than ever Dante roamed. No gulf 
Was this of fierce harmonious reward, 
Where Evil moans in anguish after death, 
Where all men reap as they have sown, where 

gluttons 
Gorge upon toads and usurers gulp hot streams 
Of molten gold. This was that Malebolge 
Which hath no harmony to mortal ears, 
But seems the reeling and tremendous dream 
Of some omnipotent madman. There he saw 
The naked giants dragging to the flames 
Young captives hideous with a new despair : 
He saw great craggy blood-stained stones 

upheaved 
To slaughter, saw through mists of blood and fire 
The cannibal feast prepared, saw filthy hands 
Rend limb from limb, and almost dreamed he saw 
Foul mouths a-drip with quivering human flesh 
And horrible laughter In the crimson storm 
That clomb and leapt and stabbed at the high 

heaven 
Till the whole night seemed saturate with red. 

131 



DRAKE 



And all night long upon the Golden Hynde, 
A cloud upon the waters, brave Tom Moone 
Watched o'er the bulwarks for some dusky plunge 
To warn him if that savage crew should mark 
His captain and swim over to his Isle. 
Whistle in hand he watched, his boat well ready, 
His men low-crouched around him, swarthy faces 
Grim-chlnned upon the taffrall, muttering oaths 
That trampled down the fear i' their bristly 

throats. 
While at their sides a dreadful hint of steel 
Sent stray gleams to the stars. But little heed 
Had Drake of all that menaced him, though oft 
Some wandering giant, belching from the feast, 
All blood-besmeared, would come so near he heard 
His heavy breathing o'er the narrow strait. 
Yet little care had Drake, for though he sat 
Bowed In the body above his quiet dead. 
His burning spirit wandered through the wastes. 
Wandered through hells behind the apparent hell, 
Horrors Immeasurable, clutching at dreams 
Found fair of old, but now most foul. The world 
Leered at him through Its old remembered mask 

133 



BOOK IV 



Of beauty: the green grass that clothed the fields 
Of England (shallow, shallow fairy dream!) 
What was it but the hair of dead men's graves, 
Rooted in death, enriched with all decay? 
And like a leprosy the hawthorn bloom 
Crawled o'er the whitening bosom of the spring; 
And bird and beast and Insect, ay and man, 
How fat they fed on one another's blood ! 
And Love, what faith in Love, when spirit and 

flesh 
Are found of such a filthy composition? 
And Knowledge, God, his mind went reeling back 
To that dark voyage on the deadly coast 
Of Panama, where one by one his men 
Sickened and died of some unknown disease, 
Till Joseph, his own brother. In his arms 
Died; and Drake trampled down all tender 

thought, 
All human grief, and sought to find the cause. 
For his crew's sake, the ravenous unknown cause 
Of that fell scourge. There, In his own dark 

cabin. 
Lit by the wild light of the swinging lanthorn, 

133 



DRAKE 



He laid the naked body on that board 

Where they had supped together. He took the 

knife 
From the agiie-stricken surgeon's palsied hands, 
And while the ship rocked In the eternal seas 
And dark waves lapped against the rolling hulk 
Making the silence terrible with voices, 
He opened his own brother's cold white corse, 
That pale deserted mansion of a soul, 
Bidding the surgeon mark, with his own eyes. 
While yet he had strength to use them, the foul 

spots, 
The swollen liver, the strange sodden heart. 
The yellow Intestines. Yea, his dry lips hissed 
There in the stark face of Eternity 
" Seest thou? Seest thou? Knowest thou what It 

means?" 
Then, like a dream up-surged the bel fried night 
Of Saint Bartholomew, the scented palaces 
Whence harlots leered out on the twisted streets 
Of Paris, choked with slaughter ! Europe flamed 
With human torches, living altar candles, 
Lighted before the Cross where men had hanged 

134 



BOOK IV 



The Christ of little children. Cirque by cirque 
The world-wide hell reeled round him, East and 

West, 
To where the tortured Indians worked the will 
Of lordly Spain in golden-famed Peru. 
"God, is thy world a madman's dream?" he 

groaned : 
And suddenly, the clamour on the shore 
Sank, and that savage horde melted away 
Into the midnight forest as it came. 
Leaving no sign, save where the brushwood fire 
Still smouldered like a ruby in the gloom; 
And into the inmost caverns of his mind 
That other clamour sank, and there was peace. 
" A madman's dream," he whispered, " Ay, to me 
A madman's dream," but better, better far 
Than that which bears upon its awful gates. 
Gates of a hell defined, unalterable, 
Abandon hope all ye who enter here! 
Here, here at least the dawn hath power to bring 
New light, new hope, new battles. Men may fight 
And sweep away that evil, if no more. 
At least from the small circle of their swords; 

135 



DRAKE 



Then die, content If they have struck one stroke 
For freedom, knowledge, brotherhood; one stroke 
To hasten that great kingdom God proclaims 
Each morning through the trumpets of the Dawn. 

And far away, in Italy, that night 

Young Galileo, gazing upward, heard 

The self-same whisper from the abyss of stars 

Which lured the soul of Shakespeare as he lay 

Dreaming In May-sweet England, even now. 

And with Its Infinite music called once more 

The soul of Drake out to the unknown West. 

Now like a wild rose in the fields of heaven 
Slipt forth the slender fingers of the Dawn 
And drew the great grey Eastern curtains back 
From the ivory saffroned couch. Rosily slid 
One shining foot and one warm rounded knee 
From silken coverlets of the tossed-back clouds. 
Then, like the meeting after desolate years, 
Face to remembered face^ Drake saw the Dawn 
Step forth In naked splendour o'er the sea ; 
Dawn, bearing still her rich divine Increase 

136 



BOOK IV 



Of beauty, love, and wisdom round the world; 
The same, yet not the same. So strangely gleamed 
Her pearl and rose across the sapphire waves 
That scarce he knew the dead man at his feet. 
His world was made anew. Strangely his voice 
Rang through that solemn Eden of the morn 
Calling his men, and stranger than a dream 
Their boats black-blurred against the crimson 

East, 
Or flashing misty sheen where'er the light 
Smote on their smooth wet sides, like seraph ships 
Moved in a dewy glory towards the land; 
Their oars of glittering diamond broke the sea 
As by enchantment into burning jewels 
And scattered rainbows from their flaming blades. 
The clear green water lapping round their prows, 
The words of sharp command as now the keels 
Crunched on his lonely shore, and the following 

wave 
Leapt slapping o*er the sterns, in that new light 
Were more than any miracle. At last 
Drake, as they grouped a little way below 
The crumbling sandy cliff whereon he stood, 

137 



DRAKE 



Seeming to overshadow them as he loomed 
A cloud of black against the crimson sky, 
Spoke, as a man may hardly speak but once: 
"My seamen, oh my friends, companions, kings; 
For I am least among you, being your captain ; 
And ye are men, and all men born are kings. 
By right divine, and I the least of these, 
Because I must usurp the throne of God 
And sit in judgment, even till I have set 
My seal upon the red wax of this blood, 
This blood of my dead friend, ere It grow cold. 
Not all the waters of that mighty sea 
Could wash my hands of sin if I should now 
Falter upon my path. But look to it, you. 
Whose word was doom last night to this dead man ; 
Look to it, I say, look to it I Brave men might 

shrink 
From this great voyage; but the heart of him 
Who dares turn backward now must be so hardy 
That God might make a thousand millstones of it 
To hang about the necks of those that hurt 
Some little child, and cast them in the sea. 
Yet if ye will be found so more than bold, 

138 



BOOK IV 



Speak now, and I will hear you: God will judge. 
But ye shall take four ships of these my five, 
Tear out the lions from their painted shields, 
And speed you homeward. Leave me but one ship, 
My Golden Hynde, and five good friends, nay one. 
To watch when I must sleep, and I will prove 
This judgment just against the winds of the world. 
Now ye that will return, speak : let me know you^ 
Or be for ever silent ; for I swear 
Over this butchered body, if any swerve 
Hereafter from the straight and perilous way. 
He shall not die alone. What? Will none speak? 
My comrades and my friends ! Yet ye must learn, 
Mark me, my friends, I'd have you all to know 
That ye are kings. I'll have no jealousies 
Aboard my fleet. I'll have the gentleman 
To pull and haul wi' the seaman. I'll not have 
That canker of the Spaniards in my fleet. 
Yc that were captains, I cashier you all. 
I'll have no captains; I'll have nought but seamen. 
Obedient to my will, because I serve 
England. What, will ye murmur? Now, beware, 
Lest I should bid you homeward all alone, 

139 



DRAKE 



You whose white hands are found too delicate 
For aught but dallying with your jewelled swords ! 
And thou, too, Master Fletcher, my ship's 

chaplain, 
Mark me, Fll have no priestcraft. I have heard 
Overmuch talk of judgment from thy lips — 
God's judgment here, God's judgment there, upon 

us! 
Whene'er the winds are contrary, thou takest 
Their powers upon thee for thy moment's end. 
Thou art God's minister, not God's oracle: 
Chain up thy tongue a little, or, by His wounds, 
If thou canst read this wide world like a book, 
Thou hast so little to fear, I'll set thee adrift 
On God's great sea to find thine own way home. 
Why, 'tis these very tyrannies o' the soul 
We strike at when we strike at Spain for England; 
And shall we here, in this great wilderness, 
Ungrappled and unchallenged, out of sight. 
Alone, without one struggle, sink that flag 
Which, when the cannon thundered, could but 

stream 
Triumphant over all the storms of death. 

140 



BOOK IV 



Nay, Master Wynter and my gallant captains, 
I see ye are tamed. Take up your ranks again 
In humbleness, remembering ye are kings. 
Kings for the sake and by the will of England, 
Therefore her servants till your lives' last end. 
Comrades, mistake not this, our little fleet 
Is freighted with the golden heart of England, 
And, if we fail, that golden heart will break. 
The world's wide eyes are on us, and our souls 
Are woven together into one great flag 
Of England. Shall we strike it? Shall it be 

rent 
Asunder with small discord, party strife. 
Ephemeral conflict of contemptible tongues. 
Or shall it be blazoned, blazoned evermore 
On the most heaven-wide page of history? 
This is that hour, — I know it in my soul, — 
When we must choose for England. Ye are kings, 
And sons of Vikings, exiled from your throne. 
Have ye forgotten ? Nay, your blood remembers ! 
There is your kingdom. Vikings, that great ocean 
Whose tang is in your nostrils. Ye must choose 
Whether to reassume it now for England, 

141 



DRAKE 



To claim its thunders for her panoply, 
To lay its lightnings in her sovereign hands, 
Win her the great commandment of the sea. 
And let its glory roll with her dominion 
Round the wide world for ever, sweeping back 
All evil deeds and dreams, or whether to yield 
For evermore that kinghood. Ye must learn 
Here in this golden dawn our great emprise 
Is greater than we knew. Eye hath not seen. 
Ear hath not heard, what came across the dark 
Last night, as there anointed with that blood 
I knelt and saw the wonder that should be. 
I saw new heavens of freedom, a new earth 
Released from all old tyrannies. I saw 
The brotherhood of man, for which we rode. 
Most ignorant of the splendour of our spears, 
Against the crimson dynasties of Spain. 
Mother of freedom, home and hope and love. 
Our little island, far, how far away, 
I saw thee shatter the whole world of hate, 
I saw the sunrise on thy helmet flame 
With new-born hope for all the world in thee I 
Come now, to sea, to sea ! " 



BOOK IV 



And ere they knew 
What power impelled them, with one mighty cry 
They lifted up their hearts to the new dawn 
And hastened down the shores and launched the 

boats, 
And In the fierce white out-draught of the waves 
Thrust with their brandished oars and the boats 

leapt 
Out, and they settled at the groaning thwarts, 
And the white water boiled before their blades. 
As, with Drake's Iron hand upon the helm. 
His own boat led the way; and ere they knew 
What power as of a wind bore them along. 
Anchor was up, their hands were on the sheets, 
The sails were broken out, and that small 

squadron 
Was flying like a sea-bird to the South. 
Now to the strait Magellanus they came. 
And entered In with ringing shouts of joy. 
Nor did they think there was a fairer strait 
In all the world than this which lay so calm 
Between great silent mountains crowned with 

snow, 

143 



DRAKE 



Unutterably lonely. Marvellous 
The pomp of dawn and sunset on those heights, 
And like a strange new sacrilege the advance 
Of prows that ploughed that time-forgotten tide. 
But soon rude flaws, cross-currents, tortuous 

channels 
Bewildered them, and many a league they drove 
As down some vaster Acheron, while the coasts 
With walling voices cursed them all night long, 
And once again the hideous fires leapt red 
By many a grim wrenched crag and gaunt ravine. 
So for a hundred leagues of whirling spume 
They groped, till suddenly, far away, they saw 
Full of the sunset, like a cup of gold, 
The purple Westward portals of the strait. 
Onward o'er roughening waves they plunged and 

reached 
Capo Desiderata, where they saw 
What seemed stupendous In that lonely place, — 
Gaunt, black, and sharp as death against the sky 
The Cross, the great black Cross on Cape Desire, 
Which dead Magellan raised upon the height 
To guide, or so he thought, his wandering ships, 

144 



BOOK IV 



Not knowing they had left him to his doom, 
Not knowing how with tears, with tears of joy, 
Rapture, and terrible triumph, and deep awe. 
Another should come voyaging and read 
Unutterable glories In that sign; 
While his rough seamen raised their mighty shout, 
And, once again, before his wondering eyes. 
League upon league of awful burnished gold. 
Rolled the unknown immeasurable sea. 

Now, in those days, as even Magellan held. 
Men thought that Southward of the strait there 

swept 
Firm land up to the white Antartlcke Pole, 
Which now not far they, deemed. But when 

Drake passed 
From out the strait to take his Northward way 
Up the Pacific coast, a great head-wind 
Suddenly smote them; and the heaving seas 
Bulged all around them Into billowy hills. 
Dark rolling mountains, whose majestic crests 
Like wild white flames far-blown and savagely 

flickering 

145 



DRAKE 



Swept through the clouds; and on their sullen 

slopes 
Like wlnd-whipt withered leaves those little ships, 
Now hurtled to the Zenith and now plunged 
Down Into bottomless gulfs, were suddenly 

scattered 
And whirled away. Drake, on the Golden Hynde, 
One moment saw them near him, soaring up 
Above him on the huge o'erhanging billows 
As if to crash down on his poop ; the next, 
A mile of howling sea had swept between 
Each of those wind-whipt straws, and they were 

gone 
Through roaring deserts of embattled death, 
Where, like a hundred thousand chariots charged 
With lightnings and with thunders, one great wave 
Leading the unleashed ocean down the storm 
Hurled them away to Southward. 

One last glimpse 
Drake caught o' the Mary gold, when some mighty 

vortex 
Wide as the circle of the wide sea-line 

146 



BOOK IV 



Swept them together again. He saw her 

staggering 
With mast snapt short and wreckage-tangled deck 
Where men like Insects clung. He saw the waves 
Leap over her mangled hulk, like wild white 

wolves, 
Volleying out of the clouds down dismal steeps 
Of green-black water. Like a wounded steed 
Quivering upon Its haunches, up she heaved 
Her head to throw them off. Then, In one mass 
Of fury crashed the great deep over her. 
Trampling her down, down Into the nethermost 

pit. 
As with a madman's wrath. She rose no more, 
And In the stream of the ocean's hurricane 

laughter 
The Golden Hynde went hurtling to the South, 
With sails rent Into ribbons and her mast 
Snapt like a twig. Yea, where Magellan thought 
Firm land had been, the little Golden Hynde 
Whirled like an autumn leaf through league on 

league 
Oi bursting seas, chaos on crashing chaos, 

147 



DRAKE 



A rolling wilderness of charging Alps 

That shook the world with their tremendous war ; 

Grim beetling cliffs that grappled with clamorous 

gulfs, 
Valleys that yawned to swallow the wide heaven; 
Immense whIte-flowerIng fluctuant precipices, 
And hills that swooped down at the throat of hell ; 
From Pole to Pole, one blanching bursting storm 
Of world-wide oceans, where the huge Pacific 
Roared greetings to the Atlantic, and both swept 
In broad white cataracts, league on struggling 

league. 
Pursuing and pursued, immeasurable, 
.With Titan hands grasping the rent black sky 
East, West, North, South. Then, then was battle 

indeed 
Of midget men upon that wisp of grass 
The Golden Hynde, who, as her masts crashed, 

hung 
Clearing the tiny wreckage from small decks 
With ant-like weapons. Not their captain's voice 
Availed them now amidst the deafening thunder 
Of seas that felt the heavy hand of God, 

148 



BOOK IV 



Only they saw across the blinding spume 
In steely flashes, grand and grim, a face, 
Like the last glimmer of faith among mankind. 
Calm In this warring universe, where Drake 
Stood, lashed to his post, beside the helm. Black 

seas 
Buffeted him. Half-stunned he dashed away 
The sharp brine from his eagle eyes and turned 
To watch some mountain-range come rushing 

down 
As if to overwhelm them utterly. Once, indeed. 
Welkin and sea were one black wave, white-f anged. 
White-crested, and up-heaved so mightily 
That, though It coursed more swiftly than a herd 
Of Titan steeds upon some terrible plain 
Nigh the huge City of Ombos, yet It seemed 
Most strangely slow, with all those crumbling 

crests, 
Each like a cataract on a mountain-side, 
And moved with the steady majesty of doom 
High over him. One moment's flash of fear, 
And yet not fear, but rather life's regret, 
Felt Drake, then laughed a low deep laugh of joy 

149 



DRAKE 



Such as men taste In battle ; yea, 'twas good 

To grapple thus with death; one low deep laugh, 

One mutter as of a Hon about to spring, 

Then burst that thunder o'er him. Height o'er 

height 
The heavens rolled down, and waves were all the 

world. 

Meanwhile, In England, dreaming of her sailor, 
Far off, his heart's bride waited, of a proud 
And stubborn house the bright and gracious flower. 
Whom oft her father urged with scanty grace 
That Drake was dead and she had best forget 
The fellow, he grunted. For her father's heart 
Was fettered with small memories, mocked by all 
The greater world's traditions and the trace 
Of earth's low pedigree among the suns. 
Ringed with the terrible twilight of the Gods, 
Ringed with the blood-red dusk of dying nations. 
His faith was In his grandam's mighty skirt, 
And, In that awful consciousness of power. 
Had It not been that even In this he feared 
To sully her silken flounce or farthingale 

150 



BOOK IV 



Wi' the white dust on his hands, he would have 

chalked 
To his own shame, thinking It shame, the word 
Nearest to God In Its divine embrace 
Of agonies and glories, the dread word 
Demos across that door In Nazareth 
Whence came the prentice Carpenter whose voice 
Hath shaken kingdoms down, whose menial gibbet 
Rises triumphant o'er th^ wreck of Empires 
And stretches out its arms amongst the stars. 
But she, his daughter, only let her heart 
Loveably forge a charter for her love. 
Cheat her false creed with faithful faery dreams 
That wrapt her love In mystery; thought, 

perchance, 
He came of some unhappy noble race 
Ruined in battle for some lost high cause. 
And, In the general mixture of men's blood, 
Her dream was truer than his whose bloodless 

pride 
Urged her to wed the chinless, moon-struck fool, 
Sprung from ^wt hundred years of idiocy, 
Who now besought her hand ; would force her bear 

151 



DRAKE 



Some heir to a calf's tongue and a coronet, 
Whose cherished taints of blood will please his 

friends 
With '' Yea, Sir William's first-born hath the 

freak, 
The family freak, being embryonic. Yea, 
And with a fine half-wlttedness, forsooth. 
Praise God, our children's children yet shall see 
The lord o' the manor muttering to himself 
At midnight by the gryphon-guarded gates, 
Or gnawing his nails in desolate corridors, 
Or pacing moonlit halls, dagger in hand. 
Waiting to stab his father's pitiless ghost." 
So she — the girl — sweet Bess of Sydenham, 
Most innocently proud, was prouder yet 
Than thus to let her heart stoop to the lure 
Of lordllng lovers, though her unstained soul 
Slumbered amidst those dreams as in old tales 
The princess in the enchanted forest sleeps 
Till the prince wakes her with a kiss and draws 
The far-flung hues o' the gleaming magic web 
Into one heart of flame. And now, for Drake, 
She slept like Brynhild in a ring of fire 

152 



BOOK IV 



Which he must pass to win her. For the wrath 
Of Spain now flamed, awaiting his return, 
All round the seas of home; and even the Queen 
Elizabeth blenched, as that tremendous Power 
Menaced the heart of England, blenched and 

vowed 
Drake's head to Spain's ambassadors, though still 
By subtlety she hoped to find some way 
Later to save or warn him ere he came. 
Perchance, too, — nay, most like, — he will be slain. 
Or even now lies dead, out in the West, 
She thought, and then the promise works no harm. 
But, day by day, there came as on the wings 
Of startled winds from o'er the Spanish Main, 
Strange echoes as of sacked and clamouring ports 
And battered gates of fabulous golden cities, 
A murmur out of the sunsets of Peru, 
A sea-bird's wail from Lima. While no less 
The wrathful menace gathered up its might 
All round our little isle ; till now the King 
Philip of Spain half secretly decreed 
The building of huge docks from which to launch 
A Fleet Invincible that should sweep the seas 

153 



DRAKE 



Of all the world, throttle with one broad grasp 
All Protestant rebellion, having stabllshed 
His red feet in the Netherlands, thence to hurl 
His whole World-Empire at this little Isle, 
England, our mother, home and hope and love, 
And bend her neck beneath his yoke. For now 
No half surrender sought he. At his back. 
Robed with the scarlet of a thousand martyrs, 
Admonishing him, stood Rome, and, in her hand. 
Grasping the Cross of Christ by Its great hilt, 
She pointed it, like a dagger, tow'rds the throat 
Of England. 

One long year, two years had passed 
Since Drake set sail from grey old Plymouth 

Sound; 
And In those woods of faery wonder still 
Slumbered his love In steadfast faith. But now 
With louder lungs her father urged — " He is dead: 
Forget him. There Is one that loves you, seeks 
Your hand In marriage, and he Is a goodly match 
E'en for my daughter. You shall wed him, 

Bess!" 

154 



BOOK IV 



But when the new-found lover came to woo, 
Glancing In summer silks and radiant hose, 
Whipt doublet and enormous pointed shoon, 
She played him like a fish and sent him home 
Spluttering with dismay, a stickleback 
Discoloured, a male minnow of dimpled streams 
With all his rainbows paling In the prime, 
To hide amongst his lilies, while once more 
She took her casement seat that overlooked 
The sea and read In Master Spenser's book, 
Which Francis gave *' To my dear lady and queen 
Bess," that most rare processional of love — 
" Sweet Thames f run softly till I end my song! " 
Yet did her father urge her day by day. 
And day by day her mother dinned her ears 
With petty saws, as — ''When / was a girl," 
And " I remember what my father said," 
And " Love, oh feather-fancies plucked from 

geese 
You call your poets ! " Yet she hardly meant 
To slight true love, save in her daughter's heart; 
For the old folk ever find it hard to see 
The passion of their children. When it wakes, 

155 



DRAKE 



The child becomes a stranger. That small bird 
Which was its heart hath left the fostering nest 
And flown they know not whither. So with Bess ; 
But since her soul still slumbered, and the moons 
Rolled on and blurred her soul's particular love 
With the vague unknown impulse of her youth, 
Her brave resistance often melted now 
In tears, and her will weakened day by day; 
Till on a dreadful summer morn there came, 
Borne by a wintry flaw, home to the Thames, 
A bruised and battered ship, all that was left, 
So said her crew, of Drake's ill-fated fleet. 
John Wynter, her commander, told the tale 
Of how the Golden Hynde and Mary gold 
Had by the wind Euroclydon been driven 
Sheer o'er the howling edges of the world; 
Of how himself by God's good providence 
Was hurled into the strait Magellanus; 
Of how on the horrible frontiers of the Void 
He had watched in vain, lit red with beacon-fires 
The desperate coasts o' the black abyss, whence 

none 
Ever returned, though many a week he watched 

156 



BOOK IV 



Beneath the Cross; and only saw God's wrath 
Burn through the heavens and devastate the 

mountains, 
And hurl unheard of oceans roaring down 
After the lost ships In one cataract 
Of thunder and splendour and fury and rolling 

doom. 
Then, with a bitter triumph In his face, 
As If this were the natural end of all 
Such vile plebeians, as if he had foreseen it 
As If himself had breathed a tactful hint 
Into the aristocratic ears of God, 
Her father broke the last frail barriers down, 
Broke the poor listless will o' the lonely girl. 
Who careless now of aught but misery 
Promised to wed their lordling. Mighty speed 
They made to press that loveless marriage on; 
And ere the May had mellowed into June 
Her marriage eve had come. Her cold hands 

held 
Drake's gift. She scarce could see her name, writ 

broad 
By that strong hand as It was. To my Queen Bess, 

157 



DRAKE 



She looked out through her casement o'er the sea, 
Listening its old enchanted moan, which seemed 
Striving to speak, she knew not what. Its breath 
Fluttered the roses round the grey old walls. 
And shook the starry jasmine. A great moon 
Hung like a red lamp in the sycamore. 
A corn-crake in the hay-fields far away 
Chirped like a cricket, and the night-jar churred 
His passionate love-song. Soft-winged moths 

besieged 
Her lantern. Under many a star-stabbed elm 
The nightingale began his golden song. 
Whose warm thick notes are each a drop of blood 
From that small throbbing breast against the thorn 
Pressed close to turn the white rose into red ; 
Even as her lawn-clad may-white bosom pressed 
Quivering against the bars, while her dark hair 
Streamed round her shoulders and her small bare 

feet 
Gleamed in the dusK. Then spake she to her 

maid — 
** I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep to-night. 
Bring thy lute hither and sing. Say, dost thou 

think 

158 



BOOK IV 



The dead can watch us from their distant world? 
Can our dead friends be near us when we weep? 
I wish *twere so ! For then my love would come, 
No matter then how far, my love would come, 
And press a light kiss on these aching eyes 
And say, ' Grieve not, dear heart, for I know all, 
And I forgive thee.* Ah, then, I should sleep, 
Sleep, sleep and dream once more. Last night, 

last night, 
I know not if it were that song of thine 
Which tells of some poor lover, crazed with pain. 
Who wanders to the grave-side of his love 
And knocks at that cold door until his love 
Opens it, and they two for some brief while 
Forget their doom in one another's arms 
Once more ; for, oh, last night, I had a dream ; 
My love came to me through the Gates of Death : 
I know not how he came. I only know 
His arms were round me, and, from far away. 
From far beyond the stars it seemed, his voice 
Breathed, in unutterable grief, farewells 
Of shuddering sweetness, clasped in one small 

word — 
Sweetheart, a joy untold, an untold pain, 

159 



DRAKE 



Far, far away, although his breath beat warm 
Against my cheek and dried mine own poor tears. 
Ah, sing that song once more ; for I have heard 
There are some songs, and this was one I am sure, 
Like the grey popples of those dreaming fields 
Where poor dead lovers drift, and in their pain 
We lose our own. Give me that poppied sleep, 
And If — In dreams — I touch my true love's lips. 
Trust me I will not ask ever to wake 
Again." Whereat the maiden touched her lute 
And sang, low-toned, with pity in her eyes. 

Then Bess bowed down her lovely head; her breast 
Heaved with short sobs and, sickening at the heart. 
She grasped the casement, moaning, '' Love, Love, 

Love, 
Come quickly: come, before It Is too late; 
Come quickly — oh, come quickly! " 

Then her maid 
Slipped a soft arm around her and gently drew 
The supple quivering body, shaken with sobs, 
And all that firm young sweetness, to her breast, 
And led her to her couch, and all night long 

1 60 



BOOK IV 



She watched beside her, till the marriage morn 
Bkished in the heartless East. Then swiftly flew 
The pitiless moments, till — as in a dream — 
And borne along by dreams, or like a lily 
Cut from Its anchorage in the stream to glide 
Down the smooth bosom of an unknown world 
Through fields of unknown blossom, so moved 

Bess 
Amongst her maids, as the procession passed 
Forth to the little church upon the cliffs, 
And, as in those days was the bridal mode, 
Her lustrous hair in billowing beauty streamed 
Dishevelled o'er her shoulders, while the sun 
Caressed her bent and glossy head, and shone 
Over the deep blue, white-flaked, wrinkled sea, 
On full-blown rosy-petalled sails that flashed 
Like flying blossoms fallen from her crown. 



i6i 



BOOK V 

I 

With the fruit of Aladdin s garden clustering thick in 

her hold. 
With rubies awash in her scuppers and her bilge ablaze 

with gold, 
A world in arms behind her to sever her heart from 

home. 
The Golden Hynde drove onward over the glittering 

foam, 

II 

If we go as we came, by the Southward, we meet wi 

the fleets of Spain! 
'Tis a thousand to one against us: we'll turn to the West 

again! 
We have captured a China pilot, his charts and his 

golden keys: 
We'll sail to the golden Gateway, over the golden seas, 

OVER the immeasurable molten gold 
\ Wrapped in a golden haze, onward 
they drew; 
And now they saw the tiny purple quay 
Grow larger and darker and brighten Into brown 
Across the swelling sparkle of the waves. 

162 






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BOOK V 



Brown on the quay, a train of tethered mules 
Munched at the nose-bags, while a Spaniard 

drowsed 
On guard beside what seemed at first a heap 
Of fish, then slowly turned to silver bars 
Up-piled and glistering In the enchanted sun. 
Nor did that sentry wake as, like a dream, 
The Golden Hynde divided the soft sleep 
Of warm green lapping water, sidled up, 
Sank sail, and moored beside the quay. But 

Drake, 
Lightly leaping ashore and stealing nigh. 
Picked up the Spaniard's long gay-ribboned gun 
Close to his ear. At once, without a sound. 
The watchman opened his dark eyes and stared 
As at strange men who suddenly had come. 
Borne by some magic carpet, from the stars; 
Then, with a courtly bow, his right hand thrust 
Within the lace embroideries of his breast. 
Politely Drake, with pained apologies 
For this disturbance of a cavalier 
Napping on guard, straightway resolved to make 
Complete amends, by now relieving him 

163 



DRAKE 



Of these — which doubtless troubled his repose — 
These anxious bars of silver. With that word 
Two seamen leaped ashore and, gathering up 
The bars In a stout old patch of tawny sail, 
Slung them aboard. No sooner this was done 
Than out o' the valley, like a foolish jest 
Out of the mouth of some great John-a-dreams, 
In soft procession of buffoonery 
A woolly train of llamas proudly came 
Stepping by two and two along the quay, 
Laden with pack on pack of silver bars 
And driven by a Spaniard. His amaze 
The seamen greeted with profuser thanks 
For his most punctual thought and opportune 
Courtesy. None the less they must avouch 
It pained them much to see a cavalier 
Turned carrier; and, at once, they must Insist 
On easing him of that too sordid care. 

Then out from Tarapaca once again 

They sailed, their hold a glimmering mine of 

wealth, 
Towards Arica and Lima, where they deemed 

164 



BOOK V 



The prize-iof prizes waited unaware. 

For every year a gorgeous galleon sailed 

With all the harvest of Potosi's mines 

And precious stones from dead kings' diadems, 

Aztecs' and Incas' gem-encrusted crowns, 

Pearls from the glimmering Temples of the 

Moon, 
Rich opals with their milky rainbow-clouds, 
White diamonds from the Temples of the Sun, 
Carbuncles flaming scarlet, amethysts, 
Rubies, and sapphires ; these to Spain she brought 
To glut her priestly coffers. Now not far 
Ahead they deemed she lay upon that coast, 
Crammed with the lustrous Indies, wrung with 

threat 
And torture from the naked Indian slaves. 
To him that spied her topsails first a prize 
Drake offered of the wondrous chain he wore; 
And every seaman, every ship-boy, watched 
Not only for the prize, but for their friends. 
If haply these had weathered through the storm. 
Nor did they know their friends had homeward 

turned, 

165 



DRAKE 



Bearing to England and to England's Queen, 
And his heart's queen, the tale that Drake was 
dead. 

Northward they cruised along a warm wild coast 
That like a most luxurious goddess drowsed 
Supine to heaven, her arms behind her head. 
One knee up-thrust to make a mountain-peak, 
Her rosy breast up-heaving their soft snow 
In distant Andes, and her naked side 
With one rich curve for half a hundred leagues 
Bathed by the creaming foam; her heavy hair 
Fraught with the perfume of a thousand forests 
Tossed round about her beauty; and her mouth 
A scarlet mystery of distant flower 
Up-turned to take the kisses of the sun. 
But like a troop of boys let loose from school 
The adventurers went by, startling the stillness 
Of that voluptuous dream-encumbered shore 
With echoing shouts of laughter and alien song. 

But as they came to Arica, from afar 
They heard the clash of bells upon the breeze, 

i66 



BOOK V 



And knew that Rumour with her thousand wings 
Had rushed before them. Horsemen In the night 
Had galloped through the white coast-villages 
And spread the dreadful cry " El Draque ! " 

abroad; 
And when the gay adventurers drew nigh 
They found the quays deserted, and the ships 
All flown, except one little fishing-boat, 
Wherein an old man like a tortoise moved 
A wrinkled head above the rusty net 
His crawling hands repaired. He seemed to dwell 
Outside the world of war and peace, outside 
Everything save his dally task, and cared 
No whit who else might win or lose; for all 
The pilot asked of him without demur 
He answered, scarcely looking from his work. 
A galleon laden with eight hundred bars 
Of silver, not three hours ago had flown 
Northward, he muttered. Ere the words were 

out, 
The will of Drake thrilled through the Golden 

Hynde 
Like one sharp trumpet-call, and ere they knew 

167 



DRAKE 



What power impelled them, crowding on all sail 
Northward they surged, and roaring down the 

wind 
At Chiuli, port of Arequipa, saw 
The chase at anchor. Wondering they came 
With all the gunners waiting at their guns 
Bare-armed and silent — nearer, nearer yet, — 
Close to the enemy. But no sight or sound 
Of living creature stirred upon her decks. 
Only a great grey cat lay in the sun 
Upon a warm smooth cannon-butt. A chill 
Ran through the veins of even the boldest there 
At that too peaceful silence. Cautiously 
Drake neared her in his pinnace ; cautiously. 
Cutlass in hand, up that mysterious hull 
He clomb, and wondered, as he climbed, to breathe 
The friendly smell o' the pitch and hear the waves 
With their incessant old familiar sound 
Crackling and slapping against her windward 

flank. 
A ship of dreams was that; for when they reached 
The silent deck, they saw no crouching forms, 
They heard no sound of life. Only the hot 
Creak of the cordage whispered In the sun. 

1 68 



BOOK V 



The cat stood up and yawned, and slunk away 
Slowly, with furtive glances. The great hold 
Was empty, and the rich cabin stripped and bare. 
Suddenly one of the seamen with a cry 
Pointed where, close Inshore, a little boa,t 
Stole towards the town; and, with a louder cry, 
Drake bade his men aboard the Golden Hynde. 
Scarce had they pulled two hundred yards away 
When, with* a roar that seemed to buffet the 

heavens 
And rip the heart of the sea out, one red flame 
Blackened with fragments, the great galleon burst 
Asunder I All the startled waves were strewn 
With wreckage; and Drake laughed — " My lads, 

we have diced 
With death to-day, and won ! My merry lads. 
It seems that Spain Is bolting with the stakes ! 
Now, If I have to stretch the skies for sails 
And summon the blasts of God up from the 

South 
To fill my canvas, I will overhaul 
Those dusky devils with the treasure-ship 
That holds our hard-earned booty. Pull hard all, 
Hard for the Golden Hynde J^ 

169 



DRAKE 



And so they came 
At dead of night on Callao de Lima ! 
They saw the harbour lights across the waves 
Ghttering, and the shadowy hulks of ships 
Gathered together like a flock of sheep 
Within the port. With shouts and clink of chains 
A shadowy ship was entering from the North, 
And like the shadow of that shadow slipped 
The Golden Hynde beside her thro' the gloom; 
And side by side they anchored in the port 
Amidst the shipping ! Over the dark tide 
A small boat from the customs-house drew near. 
A sleepy, yawning, gold-laced officer 
Boarded the Golden Hynde, and with a cry, 
Stumbling against a cannon-butt, he saw 
The bare-armed British seamen in the gloom 
All waiting by their guns. Wildly he plunged 
Over the side and urged his boat away. 
Crying, "El Draquel El Draque!" At that 

dread word 
The darkness filled with clamour, and the ships. 
Cutting their cables, drifted here and there 
In mad attempts to seek the open sea. 

170 



BOOK V 



Wild lights burnt hither and thither, and all the 

port, 
One furnace of confusion, heaved and seethed 
In terror; for each shadow of the night. 
Nay, the great night Itself, was all El Draque. 
The Dragon's wings were spread from quay to 

quay, 
The very lights that burnt from mast to mast 
And flared across the tide kindled his breath 
To fire ; while here and there a British pinnace 
Slipped softly thro' the roaring gloom and glare, 
Ransacking ship by ship ; for each one thought 
A fleet had come upon them. Each gave up 
The struggle as each was boarded; while, 

elsewhere. 
Cannon to cannon, friends bombarded friends. 

Yet not one ounce of treasure In Callao 
They found ; for, fourteen days before they came, 
That greatest treasure-ship of Spain, with all 
The gorgeous harvest of that year, had sailed 
For Panama: her ballast — silver bars; 
Her cargo — rubles, emeralds, and gold. 

171 



DRAKE 



Out through the clamour and the darkness, out, 
Out to the harbour mouth, the Golden Hynde, 
Steered by the iron soul of Drake, returned: 
And where the way was blocked, her cannon clove 
A crimson highway to the midnight sea. 
Then Northward, Northward, o'er the jewelled 

main, 
Under the white moon like a storm they drove 
In quest of the Cacafuego, Fourteen days 
Her start was ; and at dawn the fair wind sank, 
And chafing lay the Golden Hynde, becalmed; 
While, on the hills, the Viceroy of Peru 
Marched down from Lima with two thousand 

men, 
And sent out four huge ships of war to sink 
Or capture the fierce Dragon. Loud laughed 

Drake 
To see them creeping nigh, urged with great oars, 
Then suddenly pause; for none would be the first 
To close with him. And, ere they had steeled 

their hearts 
To battle, a fair breeze broke out anew. 
And Northward sped the little Golden Hynde 

172 



BOOK V 



In quest of the lordliest treasure-ship of Spain. 

• • 1 • • • • ml 

Behind her lay a world in arms; for now 
Wrath and confusion clamoured for revenge 
From sea to sea. Spain claimed the pirate's head 
From England, and awaited his return 
With all her tortures. And where'er he passed 
He sowed the dragon's teeth, and everywhere 
Cadmean broods of armed men arose 
And followed, followed on his fiery trail. 
Men toiled at Lima to fit out a fleet 
Grim enough to destroy him. All night long 
The flare went up from cities on the coast 
Where men like naked devils toiled to cast 
Cannon that might have overwhelmed the powers 
Of Michael when he drave that hideous rout 
Through livid chaos to the black abyss. 
Small hope indeed there seemed of safe return ; 
But Northward sped the little Golden Hynde, 
The world-watched midget ship of eighteen guns, 
Undaunted; and upon the second dawn 
Sighted a galleon, not indeed the chase, 
lYet worth a pause ; for out of her they took — ^ 

173 



DRAKE 



Embossed with emeralds large as pigeon's eggs — 

A golden crucifix, with eighty pounds 

In weight of gold. The rest they left behind; 

And onward, onward, to the North they flew — 

A score of golden miles, a score of green, 

An hundred miles, eight hundred miles of foam, 

Rainbows and fire, ransacking as they went 

Ship after ship for news o' the chase and gold; 

Learning from every capture that they drew 

Nearer and nearer. At Truxillo, dim 

And dreaming city, a-drowse with purple flowers. 

She had paused, ay, paused to take a freight of 

gold! 
At Paita — she had passed two days In front. 
Only two days, two days ahead; nay, one! 
At Quito, close inshore, a youthful page, 
Bright-eyed, ran up the rigging and cried, "A 

sail I 
A sail! The Cacafuego! And the chain 
Is mine ! " And by the strange cut of her sails, 
Whereof they had been told in Callao, 
They knew her! 

Heavily laden with her gems, 
Lazily drifting with her golden fruitage, 

174 



BOOK V 



Over the magic seas they saw her hull 
Loom as they onward drew; but Drake, for fear 
The prey might take alarm and run ashore, 
Trailed wine-skins, filled with water, o'er the side 
To hold his ship back, till the darkness fell. 
And with the night the off-shore wind arose. 
At last the sun sank down, the rosy light 
Faded from Andes' peaked and bosomed snow: 
The night-wind rose: the wine-skins were 

uphauled; 
And, like a hound unleashed, the Golden Hynde 
Leapt forward thro' the gloom. 

A cable's length 
Divided them. The Cacafuego heard 
A rough voice in the darkness bidding her 
Heave to! She held her course. Drake gave the 

word. 
A broadside shattered the night, and over her side 
Her main-yard clattered like a broken wing! 
On to her decks the British sea-dogs swarmed, 
Cutlass in hand: that fight was at an end. 

The ship was cleared, a prize crew placed on 
board, 

175 



DRAKE 



Then both ships turned their heads to the open 

sea. 
At dawn, being out of sight of land, they 'gan 
Examine the great prize. None ever knew 
Save Drake and Gloriana what wild wealth 
They had captured there. Thus much at least 

was known : 
An hundredweight of gold, and twenty tons 
Of silver bullion; thirteen chests of coins; 
Nuggets of gold unnumbered; countless pearls, 
Diamonds, and emeralds; but the worth of these 
Was past all reckoning. In the crimson dawn, 
Ringed with the lonely pomp of sea and sky, 
The naked-footed seamen bathed knee-deep 
In gold and gathered up Aladdin^s fruit — 
All-coloured gems — and tossed them in the sun. 
The hold like one great elfin orchard gleamed 
With dusky globes and tawny glories piled, 
Hesperian apples, heap on mellow heap, 
Rich with the hues of sunset, rich and ripe 
And ready for the enchanted cider-press; 
An Emperor's ransom in each burning orb ; 
A kingdom's purchase in each clustered bough; 
The freedom of all slaves in every chain. 

176 



BOOK VI 

NOW like the soul of Oph'ir on the sea 
Glittered the Golden Hynde, and all 
her heart 
Turned home to England. As a child 
that finds 
A ruby ring upon the highway, straight 
Homeward desires to run with It, so she 
Yearned for her home and country. Yet the 

world 
Was all In arms behind her. Fleet on fleet 
Awaited her return. Along the coast 
The very churches melted down their chimes 
And cast them Into cannon. To the South 
A thousand cannon watched Magellan's straits, 
And fleets were scouring all the sea like hounds, 
With orders that where'er they came on Drake, 
Although he were the Dragon of their dreams. 
They should out-blast his thunders and convey, 
Dead or alive, his body back to Spain. 

And Drake laughed out and said, " My trusty lads 

177 



DRAKE 



Of Devon, you have made the wide world ring 
With England's name; you have swept one half 

the seas 
From sky to sky; and In our oaken hold 
You have packed the gorgeous Indies. We shall 

sail 
But slowly with such wealth. If we return, 
We are one against ten thousand! We will seek 
The fabled Northern passage, take our gold 
Safe home; then out to sea again and try 
Our guns against their guns." 

And as they sailed 
Northward, they swooped on warm blue Guatulco 
For food and water. Nigh the dreaming port 
The grand alcaldes In high conclave sat. 
Blazing with gold and scarlet, as they tried 
A batch of negro slaves upon the charge 
Of Idleness In Spanish mines; dumb slaves, 
With bare scarred backs and labour-broken knees, 
And sorrowful eyes like those of wearied kine 
Spent from the ploughing. Even as the judge 
Rose to condemn them to the knotted lash 

178 



BOOK VI 



The British boat's crew, quiet and compact, 
Entered the court. The grim judicial glare 
Grew wider with amazement, and the judge 
Staggered against his gilded throne. 

" I thank 
Almighty God," cried Drake, " who hath given 

me this — 
That I who once, in ignorance, procured 
Slaves for the golden bawdy-house of Spain, 
May now, in England's name, help to requite 
That wrong. For now I say in England's name. 
Where'er her standard flies, the slave shall stand 
Upright, the shackles fall from off his limbs. 
Unyoke the prisoners: tell them they are men 
Once more, not beasts of burden. Set them free ; 
But take these gold and scarlet popinjays 
Aboard my Golden Hynde; and let them write 
An order that their town shall now provide 
My boats with food and water." 

This being done. 
The slaves being placed in safety on the prize. 
The Golden Hynde revictualled and the casks 
Replenished with fresh water, Drake set free 

179 



DRAKE 



The judges and swept Northward once again; 

And, off the coast of Nicaragua, found 

A sudden treasure better than all gold; 

For on the track of the China trade they caught 

A ship whereon two China pilots sailed. 

And in their cabin lay the secret charts, 

Red hieroglyphs of Empire, unknown charts 

Of silken sea-roads down the golden West 

Where all roads meet and East and West are one. 

And, with that mystery stirring in their hearts 

Like a strange cry from home, Northward they 

swept 
And Northward, till the soft luxurious coasts 
Hardened, the winds grew bleak, the great green 

waves 
Loomed high like mountains round them, and the 

spray 
Froze on their spars and yards. Fresh from the 

warmth 
Of tropic seas the men could hardly brook 
That cold; and when the floating hills of ice 
Like huge green shadows crowned with ghostly 

snow 

ii8a 



BOOK VI 



Went past them with strange whispers In the 

gloom, 
Or took mysterious colours In the dawn, 
Their hearts misgave them; and they found no 

way; 
But all was Iron shore and Icy sea. 
And one by one the crew fell sick to death 
In that fierce winter, and the land still ran 
Westward and showed no passage. Tossed with 

storms. 
Onward they plunged, or furrowed gentler tides 
Of Ice-lit emerald that made the prow 
A faery beak of some enchanted ship 
Flinging wild rainbows round her as she drove 
Thro' seas unsalled by mortal mariners. 
Past Isles unbailed of any human voice, 
Where sound and silence mingled in one song 
Of utter solitude. Ever as they went 
The flag of England blazoned the broad breeze. 
Northward, where never ship had sailed before, 
Northward, till lost In helpless wonderment. 
Dazed as a soul awakening from the dream 
Of death to some wild dawn In Paradise 

i8i 



DRAKE 



(Yet burnt with cold as they whose very tears 

Freeze on their faces where Cocytus wails) 

All world-worn, bruised, wing-broken, wracked, 

and wrenched, 
Blackened with lightning, scarred as with evil 

deeds, 
But all embalmed in beauty by that sun 
Which never sets, bosomed in peace at last 
The Golden Hynde rocked on a glittering calm. 
Seas that no ship had ever sailed, from sky 
To glistening sky, swept round them. Glory and 

gleam. 
Glamour and lucid rapture and diamond air 
Embraced her broken spars, begrimed with gold 
Her gloomy hull, rocking upon a sphere 
New made, it seemed, mysterious with the first 
Mystery of the world, where holy sky 
And sacred sea shone like the primal Light 
Of God, a-stir with whispering sea-bird*s wings 
And glorious with clouds. Only, all day. 
All night, the rhythmic utterance of His Will 
In the deep sigh of seas, that washed His throne, 
Rose and relapsed across Eternity, 

182 



BOOK VI 



Timed to the pulse of aeons. All their world 
Seemed strange as unto us the great new heavens 
And glittering shores, if on some aery bark 
To Saturn's coasts we came and traced no more 
The tiny gleam of our familiar earth 
Far off, but heard tremendous oceans roll 
Round unimagined continents, and saw 
Terrible mountains unto which our Alps 
Were less than mole-hills, and such gaunt ravines 
Cleaving them and such cataracts roaring down 
As burst the gates of our earth-moulded senses 
Pour the eternal glory on our souls, 
And, while ten thousand chariots bring the dawn. 
Hurl us poor midgets trembling to our knees. 
Glory and glamour and rapture of lucid air 
Ice cold, with subtle colours of the sky 
Embraced her broken spars, belted her hulk 
With brilliance, while she dipped her jacinth beak 
In waves of mounded splendour, and sometimes 
A great ice-mountain flashed and floated by 
Throned on the waters, pinnacled and crowned 
With all the smouldering jewels in the world; 
Or in the darkness, glimmering berg on^berg, 

183 



DRAKE 



All emerald to the moon, went by like ghosts 
Whispering to the South. 

There, as they lay, 
Waiting a wind to fill the stiffened sails. 
Their hearts remembered that in England now 
The Spring was nigh, and in that lonely sea 
The skilled musicians filled their eyes with home. 

Song 

I 
It is the Spring-tide now! 
Under the hawthorn hough 

The milkmaid goes: 
Her eyes are violets blue 
Washed with the morning dew. 
Her mouth a rose. 

It is the Spring-tide now, 

II 

The lanes are growing sweet. 
The lambkins frisk and bleat 

In all the meadows: 
The glossy dappled kine 
184 



BOOK VI 



Blink in the warm sunshine^ 
Cooling their shadows. 
It is the Spring-tide now. 



III 

Soon hand in sunburnt hand 
Thro' God's green fairyland, 

England, our home, 
Whispering as they stray 
A down the primrose way, 

Lovers will roam. 

It is the Spring-tide now. 

And then, with many a chain of linked sweetness, 
Harmonious gold, they drew their hearts and souls 
Back, back to England, thoughts of wife and child, 
Mother and sweetheart and the old companions, 
The twisted streets of London and the deep 
Delight of Devon lanes, all softly voiced 
In words or cadences, made them breathe hard 
And gaze across the everlasting sea. 
Craving for that small Isle so far away. 

185 



DRAKE 



Song 

I 

O you beautiful land. 

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright 
With the flowery largesse of May 
Sweet from the palm of her hand 

Out-flung, till the hedges grew white 
As the green-arched billows with spray, 

11 

White from the fall of her feet 
The daisies awake in the sun ! 
Cliff-side and valley and plain 
With the breath of the thyme growing sweet 
Laugh, for the Spring is begun ; 

And Love hath turned homeward again. 
O you beautiful land! &c. 

Ill 

Where should the home be of Love, 

But there, where the hawthorn-tree blows, 
And the milkmaid trips out with her pail, 
i86 



BOOK VI 



And the skylark in heaven above 
Sings, till the West is a rose 
And the East is a nightingale? 
O you beautiful land! &c. 

ly 

There where the sycamore trees 
Are shading the satin-skinned kine, 
And oaks, whose brethren of old 
Conquered the strength of the seas. 
Grow broad in the sunlight and shine 
Crowned with their cressets of gold; 
O you beautiful land! &c. 

V 

Deep-bosomed with beeches and bright 
With rose-coloured cloudlets above ; 
Billowing broad and grand 
Where the meadows with blossom are white 
For the foot-fall, the foot-fall of Love. 
O you beautiful land I 



VI 

How should we sing of thy beauty, 
England, mother of men, 
187 



DRAKE 



We that can look in thine eyes 
And see there the splendour of duty- 
Deep as the depth of their ken, 
Wide as the ring of thy skies. 

VII 

O you h e ail ti fill land, 

Deep-hosomed with beeches and bright 
With the flowery largesse of May 
Sweet from the palm of her hand 
Out-flung, till the hedges grew white 
As the green-arched billows with spray. 
O you beautiful land! 

And when a fair wind rose again, there seemed 
No hope of passage by that fabled way 
Northward, and suddenly Drake put down his 

helm 
And, with some wondrous purpose in his eyes, 
Turned Southward once again, until he found 
A lonely natural harbour on the coast 
Near San Francisco, where the cliffs were white 
Like those of England, and the soft soil teemed 

1 88 



BOOK VI 



With gold. There they careened the Golden 

Hynde — 

Her keel being thick with barnacles and weeds 

And built a fort and dockyard to refit 
Their little wandering home, not half so large 
As many a coasting barque to-day that scarce 
Would cross the Channel, yet she had swept the 

seas 
Of half the world, and even now prepared 
For new adventures greater than them all. 
And as the sound of chisel and hammer broke 
The stillness of that shore, shy figures came, 
Keen-faced and grave-eyed Indians, from the 

woods 
To bow before the strange white-faced newcomers 
As gods. Whereat the chaplain much aghast 
Persuaded them with signs and broken words 
And grunts that even Drake was but a man, 
Whom none the less the savages would crown 
With woven flowers and barbarous ritual 
King of New Albion — so the seamen called 
That land, remembering the white cliffs of home. 
Much they Implored, with many a sign and cry, 

189 



DRAKE 



Which by the rescued slaves upon the prize 
Were part interpreted, that Drake would stay 
And rule them ; and the vision of the great 
Empire of Englishmen arose and flashed 
A moment round them, on that lonely shore. 
A small and weather-beaten band they stood, 
Bronzed seamen by the laughing rescued slaves, 
Ringed with gigantic loneliness and saw 
An Empire that should liberate the world; 
A power before the lightning of whose arms 
Darkness should die and all oppression cease; 
A Federation of the strong and weak. 
Whereby the weak were strengthened and the 

strong 
Made stronger in the increasing good of all ; 
A gathering up of one another's loads; 
A turning of the wasteful rage of war 
To accomplish large and fruitful tasks of peace. 
Even as the strength of some great stream Is turned 
To grind the corn for bread. E'en thus on 

England 
That splendour dawned which these in dreams 

foresaw 

190 



BOOK VI 



And saw not with their living eyes, but thou, 
England, mayst lift up eyes at last and see. 
Who, like that angel of the Apocalypse, 
Hast set one foot upon thy sea-girt isle, 
The other upon the waters, and canst raise 
Now, if thou wilt, above the assembled nations, 
The trumpet of deliverance to thy lips. 

At last their task was done, the Golden Hynde 
Undocked, her white wings hoisted; and away 
Westward they swiftly glided from that shore 
Where, with a wild lament, their Indian friends. 
Knee-deep I' the creaming foam, all stood at gaze. 
Like men that for one moment in their lives 
Have seen a mighty drama cross their path 
And played upon the stage of vast events 
Knowing, henceforward, all their life is nought. 
But Westward sped the little Golden Hynde 
Across the uncharted ocean, with no guide 
But that great homing cry of all their hearts. 
Far out of sight of land they steered, straight out 
Across the great Pacific, in those days 
When even the compass proved no trusty guide, 

191 



DRAKE 



Straight out they struck In that small bark, straight 

out 
Week after week, without one glimpse of aught 
But heaving seas, across the uncharted waste 
Straight to the sunset. Laughingly they sailed, 
With all that gorgeous booty In their holds, 
A splendour dragging deep through seas of doom, 
A prey to the first great hurricane that blew 
Except their God averted it. And still 
Their skilled musicians cheered the way along 
To shores beyond the sunset and the sea. 
And oft at nights, the yellow fo'c'sle lanthorn 
Swung over swarthy singing faces grouped 
Within the four small wooden walls that made 
Their home and shut them from the unfathomable 
Depths of mysterious gloom without that rolled 
All round them; or Tom Moone would heartily 

troll 
A simple stave that struggled oft with thoughts 
Beyond Its reach, yet reached their hearts no less. 



192 



BOOK VI 



Song 

I 
Good luck befall you, mariners all 

That sail this world so wide! 
Whither we go, not yet we know: 

We steer by wind and tide. 
Be it right or wrong, I sing this song; 

For now it seems to me 
Men steer their souls thro* rocks and shoals 

As mariners use by sea. 

Chorus : As mariners use by sea, 
My lads, 
As mariners use by sea! 

II 
And now they plough to windward, now 

They drive before the gale! 
Now are they hurled across the world 

With torn and tattered sail; 
Yet, as they will, they steer and still 

Defy the world's rude glee: 
Till death overwhelm them, mast and helm, 

They ride and rule the sea, 

193 



DRAKE 



Chorus : They ride and rule the sea 
My lads, 
They ride and rule the sea! 

Meantime, In England, Bess of Sydenham, 
Drake's love and queen, being told that Drake was 

dead, 
And numbed with grief, obeying her father's will 
That dreadful summer morn In bridal robes 
Had passed to wed her father's choice. The sun 
Streamed smiling on her as she went, half-dazed. 
Amidst her smiling maids. Nigh to the sea 
The church was, and the mellow marriage bells 
Mixed with its music. Far away, white sails 
Spangled the sapphire, white as flying blossoms 
New-fallen from her crown; but as the glad 
And sad procession neared the little church. 
From some strange ship-of-war, far out at sea, 
There came a sudden tiny puff of smoke — 
And then a dull strange throb, a whistling hiss. 
And scarce a score of yards away a shot 
Ploughed up the turf. None knew, none ever 

knew 

194 



BOOK VI 



From whence it came, whether a perilous jest 

Of English seamen, or a wanton deed 

Of Spaniards, or mere accident; but all 

Her maids In flight were scattered. Bess awoke 

As from a dream, crying aloud — " 'TIs he, 

'TIs he that sends this message. He Is not dead. 

I will not pass the porch. Nay, take me home, 

'Twas he that sent that message." 

Nought availed. 
Her father's wrath, her mother's tears, her maids' 
Cunning persuasions, nought; home she returned, 
And waited for the dead to come to life; 
Nor waited long; for ere that month was out. 
Rumour on rumour reached the coasts of England, 
Borne as It seemed on sea-birds' wings, that Drake 
Was on his homeward way. 



195 



BOOK vir 

THE imperial wrath of Spain, one world- 
wide sea 
Of furious pomp and flouted power, 
now surged 
All round this little isle, with one harsh roar 
Deepening for Drake's return — " The Golden 

Hynde 
Ye swore had foundered, Drake ye swore was 

drowned ; 
They are on their homeward way 1 The head of 

Drake ! 
What answer, what account, what recompense 
Now can ye yield our might invincible 
Except the head of Drake, whose bloody deeds 
Have reddened the Pacific, who hath sacked 
Cities of gold, burnt fleets, and ruined realms, — 
What answer but his life? '* 

To which the Queen 
Who saw the storm of Europe slowly rising 

196 



BOOK VII 



In awful menace o'er her wave-beat throne, 
And midmost of the storm, the ensanguined robes 
Of Rome and murderous hand, grasping the Cross 
By Its great hilt, pointing It like a brand 
Blood-blackened at the throat of England, saw 
Like skeleton castles wrapt In rolling mist 
The monstrous engines and designs of war, 
The secret fleets and brooding panoplies 
Philip prepared, growing from day to day 
In dusk armlpotent and embattled gloom 
Surrounding her, replied: *' The life of Drake, 
If, on our strict inquiry. In due order 
We find that Drake have hurt our friends, mark 

well, 
If Drake have hurt our friends, the life of Drake." 

And while the world awaited him, as men 
Might wait an earthquake, quietly one grey morn. 
One grey October morn of mist and rain 
When all the window-panes in Plymouth dripped 
With listless drizzle, and only through her streets 
Rumbled the death-cart with its dreary bell 
Monotonously plangent (for the plague 

197 



DRAKE 



Had lately like a vampire sucked the veins 
Of Plymouth town), a little weed-clogged ship, 
Grey as a ghost, glided Into the Sound 
And anchored, scarce a soul to see her come. 
And not an eye to read the faded scroll 
Around her battered prow — the Golden Hynde. 
Then, thro' the dumb grey misty listless port, 
A rumour like the colours of the dawn 
Streamed o'er the shining quays, up the wet streets. 
In at the tavern doors, flashed from the panes 
And turned them Into diamonds, fired the pools 
In every muddy lane with Spanish gold. 
Flushed In a thousand faces, Drake Is come ! 
Down every crowding alley the urchins leaped 
Tossing their caps, the Golden Hynde Is come I 
Fishermen, citizen, prentice, dame and maid, 
Fat justice, floury baker, bloated butcher, 
Fishwife, minister and apothecary, 
Yea, even the driver of the death-cart, leaving 
His ghastly load, using his dreary bell 
To merrier purpose, down the seething streets, 
Panting, tumbling, jostling, helter-skelter 
To the water-side, to the water-side they rushed, 

198 



BOOK VII 



And some knee-deep beyond it, all one wild 
Welcome to Francis Drake! 
Wild kerchiefs fluttering, thunderous hurrahs 
Rolling from quay to quay, a thousand arms 
Outstretched to that grey ghostly little ship 
At whose masthead the British flag still flew; 
Then, over all, in one tumultuous tide 
Of pealing joy, the Plymouth bells outclashed 
A nation's welcome home to Francis Drake. 

The very Golden Hynde, no Idle dream, 
The little ship that swept the Spanish Main, 
Carelessly lying there, in Plymouth Sound, 
The Golden Hynde, the wonder of the world, 
A glory wrapt her greyness, and no boat 
Dared yet approach, save one, with Drake's close 

friends, 
Who came to warn him : " England stands alone 
And Drake Is made the price of England's peace. 
The Queen, perforce, must temporise with Spain, 
The Invincible I She hath forfeited thy life 
To Spain against her will. Only by this 
Rejection of thee as a privateer 

199 



DRAKE 



She averted instant war; for now the menace 

Of Spain draws nigher, looms darker every hour. 

The world Is made Spain's footstool. Philip, the 

King, 
E'en now hath added to her boundless power 
Without a blow, the vast domains and wealth 
Of Portugal, and deadlier yet, a coast 
That crouches over against us. Cadiz holds 
A huge Armada, none knows where to strike; 
And even this day a flying horseman brought 
Rumours that Spain hith landed a great force 
In Ireland. Mary of Scotland only waits 
The word to stab us In the side for Rome. 
The Queen, weighed down by Burleigh and the 

friends 
Of peace at any cost, may yet be driven 
To make thy life our ransom, which Indeed 
She hath already sworn, or seemed to swear.'' 



To whom Drake answered, " Gloriana lives; 
And in her life mine only fear lies dead. 
Mine only fear, for England, not myself. 
Willing am I and glad, as I have lived, 

200 



BOOK VII 



To die for England's sake. 
Yet, lest the Queen be driven now to restore 
This cargo that I bring her — a world's wealth, 
The golden springs of all the power of Spain, 
The jewelled hearts of all those cruel realms 
(For I have plucked them out) beyond the sea; 
Lest she be driven to yield them up again 
For Rome and Rome's delight, I will warp out 
Behind St. Nicholas' Island. The fierce plague 
In Plymouth shall be colour and excuse, 
Until my courier return from court 
With Glorlana's will. If It be death, 
I'll out again to sea, strew Its rough floor 
With costlier largesses than kings can throw. 
And, ere I die, will singe the Spaniard's beard 
And set the fringe of his Imperial robe 
Blazing along his coasts. Then let him roll 
His galleons round the little Golden Hynde, 
Bring her to bay, If he can, on the high seas. 
Ring us about with thousands, we'll not yield, 
I and my Golden Hynde, we will go down, 
With flag still flying on the last stump left us, 
And all my cannon spitting out the fires 
Of everlasting scorn Into his face." 

201 



DRAKE 



So Drake warped out the Golden Hynde anew 
Behind St. Nicholas' Island. She lay there, 
The small grey-golden centre of the world 
That raged all round her, the last hope, the star 
Of Protestant freedom, she, the outlawed ship 
Holding within her the great head and heart 
Of England's ocean power; and all the fleets 
That have enfranchised earth, in that small ship, 
Lay waiting for their doom. 

Past her at night 
Fisher-boats glided, wondering as they heard 
In the thick darkness the great songs they deemed 
Must oft have risen from many a lonely sea; 
For oft had Spaniards brought a rumour back 
Of that strange pirate who in royal state 
Sailed to a sound of violins, and dined 
With skilled musicians round him, turning all 
Battle and storm and death into a song. 

Song 

The same Sun is o'er us. 
The same Love shall find us, 

202 



BOOK VII 



The same and none other 
Wherever we be; 
With the same hope before us, 
The same home behind us, 
England, our mother. 

Ringed round with the sea. 

No land in the ring of it 
Now, all around us 
Only the splendid 
Resurging unknown; 
How should we sing of It, 
This that hath found us 
By the great stars attended 
At midnight, alone ? 

Our highway none knoweth, 

Yet our blood hath discerned it! 
Clear, clear Is our path now 
Whose foreheads are free, 
Where the hurricane bloweth 
Our spirits have learned it, 

'Tis the highway of wrath, now, 
The storm's way, the sea. 
203 



DRAKE 



When the waters lay breathless 
Gazing at Hesper 

Guarding that glorious 
Fruitage of gold, 
Heard we the deathless 
Wonderful whisper 
We follow, victorious 
To-night, as of old. 

Ah, the broad miles of It 
White with the onset 

Of waves without number 
Warring for glee; 
Ah, the soft smiles of It 
Down to the sunset, 
Sacred for slumber 

The swanks bath, the sea ! 

When the breakers charged thundering 
In thousands all round us 
With a lightning of lances 
Up-hurtled on high. 
When the stout ships were sundering 
A rapture hath crowned us 
204 



BOOK VII 



Like the wild light that dances 
On the crests that flash by. 

Our highway none knoweth^ 

Yet our blood hath discerned it! 
Clear f clear is our path now 
Whose foreheads are free, 
Where Euroclydon hloweth 
Our spirits have learned it, 

'Tis the highway of wrath, now. 
The storm^s way, the sea! 

Who now will follow us 

Where England's flag leadeth us, 
Where gold not Inveigles, 
Nor statesmen betray? 
Tho' the deep midnight swallow us. 
Let her cry when she needeth us, 
We return, her sea-eagles, 
The hurricane's way. 

For the same Sun is o'er us. 
The same Love shall find us. 
The same and none other 
205 



DRAKE 



Wherever we he; 
With the same hope before us, 
The same home behind us, 
England, our mother. 

Ringed round with the sea. 

So SIX days passed, and on the seventh returned 
The courier, with a message from the Queen 
Summoning Drake to court, bidding him bring 
Also such curious trifles of his voyage 
As might amuse her, also be of good cheer 
She bade him, and rest well content his life 
In Gloriana's hands were safe : so Drake 
Laughingly landed with his war-bronzed crew 
Amid the wide-eyed throng on Plymouth beach 
And loaded twelve big pack-horses with pearls 
Beyond all price, diamonds, crosses of gold. 
Rubies that smouldered once for Aztec kings. 
And great dead Incas' gem-encrusted crowns. 
Also, he said, we'll add a sack or twain 
Of gold doubloons, pieces of eight moidores. 
And such-like Spanish trash, for those poor lords 
At court, lilies that toil not neither spin, 

206 



BOOK VII 



Wherefore, methlnks their purses oft grow lean 
In these harsh times. 'Twere even as well their 

tongues 
Wagged in our favour, now, as in our blame. 

• • • . . 

Six days thereafter a fearful whisper reached 
Mendoza, plenipotentiary of Spain 
In London, that the pirate Drake was now 
In secret conference with the Queen ; nay more, 
That he, the Master-thief of the golden world, 
Drake, even he, that bloody buccaneer. 
Had six hours' audience with her Majesty 
Daily — nay, more, walked with her in her garden 
Alone, among the fiery Autumn leaves, 
Talking of God knows what, and suddenly 
The temporizing diplomatic voice 
Of caution he was wont to expect from England 
And blandly accept as his imperial due 
Changed to a ringing key of firm resolve, 
Resistance — nay, defiance. For when he came 
Demanding audience of the Queen, behold! 
Her officers of state with mouths awry 
Informed the high ambassador of Spain, 

207 



DRAKE 



Despite his pomp and circumstance, the Queen 
Could not receive him, being in conference 
With some rough seaman, pirate, what you will, 
A fellow made of bronze, a buccaneer, 
Maned like a lion, bearded like a pard, 
With hammered head, clamped jaws and great 

deep eyes 
That burned with fierce blue colours of the brine. 
And liked not Spain — Drake! 'Twas the very 

name, 
One Francis Drake ! A Titan that had stood, 
Thundering commands against the thundering 

heavens. 
Of lightning-shattered, storm-swept decks and 

drunk 
Great draughts of glory from the rolling sea, 
El Draque ! El Draque ! Nor could she promise 

aught 
To Spain's ambassador, nor see his face 
Again, while yet one Spanish musketeer 
Remained In Ireland. 

Vainly the Spaniard raged 
Of restitution, recompense; for now 

208 



BOOK VII 



Had Drake brought up the little Golden Hynde 
To London, and6:he rumour of her wealth 
Out-topped the wild reality. The crew 
Were princes as they swaggered down the streets 
In weather-beaten splendour. Out of their doors 
To wonder and stare the jostling citizens ran 
When They went by; and through the length and 

breadth 
Of England, now, the gathering glory of life 
Shone like the dawn. O'er hill and dale it 

streamed. 
Dawn, everlasting and almighty dawn, 
Making a golden pomp of every oak — 
Had not its British brethren swept the seas? — 
In each remotest hamlet, by the hearth. 
The cart, the grey church-porch, the village pump. 
By meadow and mill and old manorial hall. 
By turnpike and by tavern, farm and forge. 
Men staved the crimson vintage of romance 
And held it up against the light and drank It,j 
And with it drank confusion to the wrath 
That menaced England, but eternal honour, 
While blood ran in their veins, to Francis Drake. 

209 



BOOK VIII 

MEANWHILE, young Bess of Syden- 
ham, the queen 
Of Drake's deep heart, emprisoned 
in her home. 
Fenced by her father's angry watch and ward 
Lest he — the poor plebeian dread of Spain, 
Shaker of nations, king of the untamed seas — • 
Might win some word with her, sweet Bess, the 

flower, 
Triumphant o'er their rusty heraldries. 
Waited her lover, as in ancient tales 
The pale princess from some grey wizard's tower 
Midmost the deep sigh of enchanted woods 
Looks for the starry flash of her knight's shield; 
Or on the further side o' the magic West 
Sees pushing through the ethereal golden gloom 
Some blurred black prow, with loaded colours 

coarse, 
Clouded with sunsets of a mortal sea, 

2IO 



BOOK VIII 



And rich with earthly crimson. She, with lips 
Apart, still waits the shattering golden thrill 
When It shall grate the coasts of Fairyland. 

Only, to Bess of Sydenham, there came 

No sight or sound to break that frozen spell 

And lonely watch, no message from her love. 

Or none that reached her restless helpless hands. 

Only the general rumour of the world 

Borne to her by the gossip of her maid 

Kept the swift pictures flashing through her brain 

Of how the Golden Hynde was hauled ashore 

At Deptford through a sea of exultation. 

And by the Queen's command was now set up 

For an everlasting memory! 

Of how the Queen with subtle statecraft still 

Kept Spain at arm's length, dangling, while she 

played 
At fast and loose with France, whose embassy. 
Arriving with the marriage treaty, found 
(And trembled at her daring, since the wrath 
Of Spain seemed, in their eyes, to flake with foam 
The storm-beat hulk) a gorgeous banquet spread 

2U 



DRAKE 



To greet them on that very Golden Hynde 
Which sacked the Spanish Main, a gorgeous feast, 
The like of which old England had not seen 
Since the bluff days of boisterous King Hal, 
Great shields of brawn with mustard, roasted 

swans, 
Haunches of venison, roasted chines of beef, 
And chewets baked, big ollve-pyes thereto, 
And sallets mixed with sugar and cinnamon, 
White wine, rose-water, and candled eringoes. 
There, on the outlawed ship, whose very name 
Rang like a blasphemy In the Imperial ears 
Of Spain (Its every old worm-eaten plank 
Being scored with scorn and courage that not storm 
Nor death, nor all their Inquisition racks, 
The white-hot Irons and bloody branding whips 
That scarred the back of Rome's pale 

galley-slaves, 
Her captured English seamen, ever could daunt), 
There with huge Empires waiting for one word. 
One breath of colour and excuse, to leap 
Like wolves at the naked throat of her small isle, 
There in the eyes of the staggered world she stood, 

212 



BOOK VIII 



Great Glorlana, while the live decks reeled 
With flash of jewels and flush of rustling silks, 
She stood with Drake, the corsair, and her people 
Surged like a sea around. There did she give 
Open defiance with her agate smile 
To Spain. " Behold this pirate, now," she cried, 
" Whose head my Lord, the Invincible, Philip of 

Spain 
Demands from England. Kneel down. Master 

Drake, 
Kneel down ; for now have I this gilded sword 
Wherewith to strike it off. Nay, thou my lord 
Ambassador of France, since I be woman, 
And squeamish at the sight of blood, give thou 
The accolade. With that jest she gave the hilt 
(Thus, even In boldness, playing a crafty part. 
And dangling France before the adventurous 

deed) 
To Marchaumont; and in the face of Europe, 
With that huge fleet in Cadiz and the whole 
World-power of Spain crouching around her isle, 
Knighted the master-thief of the unknown world. 
Sir Francis Drake. 

213 



DRAKE 



And then the rumour came 
Of vaster privateerings planned by Drake 
Against the coasts of Philip ; but held In check 
And fretting at the leash, as ever the Queen 
Clung to her state-craft, while Drake's enemies 
Worked In the dark against him. Spain had set 
An emperor's ransom on his life. At home 
John Doughty, treacherous brother of that traitor 
Who met his doom by Drake's own hand, Intrigued 
With Spain abroad and Spain's dark emissaries 
At home to avenge his brother. Burleigh still 
Beset Drake's path with pitfalls : treacherous greed 
For Spain's blood-money daggered all the dark 
Around him, and John Doughty without cease 
Sought to make use of all; until, by chance, 
Drake gat the proof of treasonable Intrigue 
With Spain, against him, up to the deadly hilt, 
And hurled him into the Tower. 

Many a night 
She sat by that old casement nigh the sea 
And heard Its ebb and flow. With soul erect 
And splendid now she waited, yet there came 
No message ; and, she thought, he hath seen at last 

214 



BOOK VIII 



My little worth. And when her maiden sang, 
With white throat throbbing softly In the dusk 
And fingers gently straying o'er the lute, 
As was her wont at twilight, some old song 
Of high disdainful queens and lovers pale 
'Pining a thousand years before their feet, 
She thought, " Oh, If my lover loved me yet. 
My heart would break for joy to welcome him: 
Perchance his true pride will not let him come. 
Since false pride barred him out " ; and yet again 
She burned with shame, thinking, " to him such 

pride 
Were matter for a jest. Ah no, he hath seen 
My little worth." Even so, one night she sat, 
One dark rich summer night, thinking him far 
Away, wrapped In the multitudinous cares 
Of one that seemed the steersman of the State 
Now, thro' the storm of Europe; while her maid 
Sang to the lute, and soft sea-breezes brought 
Wreathed scents and sighs of secret waves and 

flowers 
Warm through the casement's muffling jasmine 

bloom. 

215 



DRAKE 



Song 

I 

Nymphs and naiads^ come away, — 

Love lies dead! 
Cover the cast-hack golden head. 
Cover the lovely limbs with may, 

And with fairest houghs of green, 
'And many a rose-wreathed briar spray: 
But let no hateful yew be seen 
Where Love lies dead. 

11 

Let not the queen that would not hear, 

{Love lies dead!) 
Or beauty that refused to save, 
Exult in one dejected tear; 
But gather the glory of the year, 
The pomp and glory of the year. 
The triumphing glory of the year, 
And softly, softly, softly shed 
Its light and fragrance round the grave 
Where Love lies dead, 
216 



BOOK VIII 



The song ceased. Far away the great sea slept, 

And all was very still. Only hard by 

One bird-throat poured its passion through the 

gloom, 
And the whole night seemed breathlessly listening, 
As though earth's fairies, at the moon's command, 
Had muffled all the flower-bells In the world, 
That God might hear His nightingale. 

A twig 
Snapped, the song ceased, the Intense dumb night 

was all 
One passion of expectation — as If that song 
Were prelude, and ere long the heavens and earth 
Would burst Into one great triumphant psalm. 
The song ceased only as If that small bird-throat 
Availed no further. Would the next great chord 
Ring out from harps In flaming seraph hands 
Ranged through the sky? The night watched, 

breathless, dumb. 
Bess listened. Once again a dry twig snapped 
Beneath her casement, and a face looked up. 
Draining her face of blood, of sight, of life, 
Whispering, a voice from far beyond the stars, 

ai7 



DRAKE 



Whispering, unutterable joy, the whole 
Glory of life and death in one small word — 
Sweetheart! 

The jasmine at her casement shook: 
She knew no more than he was at her side; 
His arms were round her, and his breath beat 

warm 
Against her cheek. 

• • • • • 

Suddenly, nigh the house, 
A deep-mouthed mastiff bayed and a foot crunched 
The gravel. "Ah, hark! they are watching for 

thee," she cried. 
He laughed: "There's half of Europe on the 

watch 
Outside for my poor head. 'TIs cosier here 
With thee; but now "> — his face grew grave, he 

drew 
A silken ladder from out his doublet — " quick, 
Before yon good gamekeeper rounds the house 
We must be down." And ere the words were out 
Bess reached the path, and Drake was at her side. 
Then Into the star-stabbed shadow of the woods 

218 



BOOK VIII 



They sped, his arm around her. Suddenly 

She drew back with a cry, as four grim faces, 

With hand to forelock, glimmered In their way. 

Laughing she saw their storm-beat friendly smile 

Welcome their doughty captain In this new 

Adventure. Far away, once more they heard 

The mastiff bay; then nearer, as If his nose 

Were down upon the trail ; and then a cry 

As of a hot pursuit. They reached the brook, 

Hurrying to the deep. Drake lifted Bess 

In his arms, and down the watery bed they 

splashed 
To baffle the clamouring hunt. Then out of the 

woods 
They came, on the seaward side, and Bess, with 

a shiver, 
Saw starlight flashing from bare cutlasses. 
As the mastiff bayed still nearer. Swiftlier now 
They passed along the bare blunt cliffs, and saw 
The furrow ploughed by that strange cannon-shot 
Which saved this hour for Bess; down to the 

beach 
And starry foam that churned the silver gravel 

219 



DRAKE 



Around an old black lurching boat, a strange 
Grim Charon's wherry for two lovers' flight, 
Guarded by old Tom Moone. Drake took her 

hand, 
And with one arm around her waist, her breath 
Warm on his cheek for a moment, in she stepped 
Daintily o'er the gunwale and took her seat. 
His throned princess, beside him at the helm. 
Backed by the glittering waves, his throned 

princess. 
With jewelled throat and glorious hair that 

seemed 
Flashing back scents and colours to a sea 
Which lived but to reflect her loveliness. 

Then, all together, with their brandished oars 
The seamen thrust as a heavy mounded wave 
Lifted the boat; and up the flowering breast 
Of the next they soared, then settled at the 

thwarts. 
And the fierce water boiled before their blades. 
While with Drake's iron hand upon the helm 
They plunged and ploughed across the starlit seas 

220 



BOOK VIII 



To where a small black lugger at anchor swung, 
Dipping her rakish bows I' the liquid moon. 
Small was she, but not fangless; for Bess saw, 
With half a tremor, the dumb protective grin 
Of four grim guns above the tossing boat. 
But ere his seamen or his sweetheart knew 
What power, as of a wind, bore them along, 
Anchor was up, the sails were broken out. 
And as they scudded down the dim grey coast 
Of a new enchanted world (for now had Love 
Made all things new and strange) the skilled 

musicians 
Upraised, at Drake's command, a song to cheer 
Their midnight path across that faery sea. 

Song 

I 

Sweet, what is love? 'Tis not the crown of kings. 
Nay, nor the fire of white seraphic wings ! 
Is It a child's heart leaping while he sings? 

Even so say I ; 

Even so say I. 

221 



DRAKE 



n 

Love like a child around our world doth run, 
Happy, happy, happy for all that God hath done, 
Glad of all the little leaves dancing in the sun, 

Even so say I ; 

Even so say I. 

Ill 

Sweet, what is love? 'Tis not the burning bliss 
Angels know in heaven! God blows the world 

a kiss 
Wakes on earth a wild-rose 1 Ah, who knows not 
this? 

Even so say I ; 
Even so say I. 

IV 

Love, love is kind I Can it be far away. 
Lost in a light that blinds our little day? 
Seems it a great thing? Sweetheart, answer nay; 

Even so say I ; 

Even so say L 

22Z 



BOOK VIII 



V 

Sweet, what Is love? The dust beneath our feet, 
Whence breaks the rose and all the flowers that 

greet 
April and May with lips and heart so sweet; 
Even so say I ; 
Even so say I. 

VI 

Love IS the dust whence Eden grew so fair, 

Dust of the dust that set my lover there. 

Ay, and wrought the gloriole of Eve's gold hair, 

Even so say I ; 

Even so say I. 

VII 
Also the springing spray, the little topmost flower 
Swung by the bird that sings a little hour. 
Earth's climbing spray into the heaven's blue 
bower, 

Even so say I ; 
Even so say I. 
223 



DRAKE 



And stranger, ever stranger, grew the night 
Around those twain, for whom the fleecy moon 
Was but a mightier Cleopatra's pearl 
Dissolving in the rich dark wine of night, 
While 'mid the tenderer talk of eyes and hands 
And whispered nothings, his imperial dreams 
Rolled round their gloomy barge, robing its hulk 
With splendours Rome and Egypt never knew. 
Old ocean was his Nile, his mighty queen 
An English maiden purer than the dawn, 
His cause the cause of Freedom, his reward 
The glory of England. Strangely simple, then. 
Simple as life and death, anguish and love. 
To Bess appeared those mighty dawning dreams. 
Whereby he shaped the pageant of the world 
To a new purpose, strangely simple all 
Those great new waking tides i' the world's great 

soul 
That set towards the fall of Spain and Rome 
Behind a thunderous roar of ocean triumph 
O'er burning ships and shattered fleets, while 

England 
Grasped with sure hands the sceptre of the sea, 

224 



BOOK VIII 



That untamed realm of Liberty which none 

Had looked upon as aught but wilderness 

Ere this, or even dreamed of as the seat 

Of power and judgment and high sovereignty 

Whereby all nations at the last should make 

One brotherhood, and war should be no more. 

And ever, as the vision broadened out, 

The sense of some tremendous change at hand. 

The approach of vast Armadas and the dawn 

Of battle, reddening the diviner dawn 

With clouds, confused It, till once more the song 

Rang out triumphant o'er the glittering sea. 

Song 
I 

Ye that follow the vision 

Of the world's weal afar, 
Have ye met with derision 

And the red laugh of war; 
Yet the thunder shall not hurt you. 

Nor the hattle-storms dismay; 
Tho* the sun in heaven desert you, 

** Love will find out the wayP 
225 



DRAKE 



II 

When the pulse of hope falters, 

When the fire flickers low 
On your faith* s crumbling altars, 

And the faithless gods go; 
When the fond hope ye cherished 

Cometh, kissing, to betray; 
When the last star hath perished, 

** Love will find out the way J* 

in 

When the last dream hereaveth you, 

And the heart turns to stone; 
When the last comrade leaveth you 

In the desert alone. 
With the whole world before you 

Clad in battle-array. 
And the starless night o^er you, 

" Love will find out the way!* 

IV 

Your dreamers may dream it 
The shadow of a dream, 
226 



BOOK VIII 



Your sages may deem it 

A bubble on the stream, — 
Yet our kingdom draweth nigher 

With each dawn and every day; 
Through the earthquake and the fire 

'' Love will find out the wayT 

V 

Love will find it, tho* the nations 

Rise up blind, as of old, 
And the new generations 

Wage their warfares of gold; 
Tho' they trample child and mother 

As red clay into the clay, 
Where brother wars with brother, 

" Love will find out the way J' 

Dawn, ever bearing some divine increase 
Of beauty, love, and wisdom round the world, 
Dawn, like a wild-rose in the fields of heaven 
Washed grey with dew, awoke, and found the 

barque 
At anchor in a little land-locked bay. 

227 



DRAKE 



A crisp breeze blew, and all the living sea 
Beneath the flower-soft colours of the sky, 
Now like a myriad-petalled rose and now 
Innumerably scalloped Into shells 
Of rosy fire, with dwindling wrinkles edged 
Fainter and fainter to the unruffled glow 
And soft white pallor of the distant deep, 
Shone with a mystic beauty for those twain 
Who watched the gathering glory; and, in an 

hour, 
Drake and sweet Bess, attended by a guard 
Of four swart seamen, with bare cutlasses. 
And by the faithful eyes of old Tom Moone, 
Went up the rough rock-steps and twisted street 
Oh, the small white sparkling seaport, towards the 

church 
Where, hand In hand, before God's altar they. 
With steadfast eyes, did plight eternal troth. 
And so were wedded. Never a chime of bells 
Had they; but as they passed from out the porch 
Between the sleeping graves, a skylark soared 
Above the world in an ecstasy of song. 
And, quivering heavenwards, lost himself In light. 

228 



BOOK IX 

NOW like a white-cllffed fortress Eng- 
land shone 
Amid the mirk of chaos ; for the huge 

Empire of Spain was but the dusky 
van 

Of that dread night beyond all nights and days, 
Night of the last corruption of a world 
Fast-bound In misery and Iron, with chains 
Of priest and king and feudal servitude. 
Night of the fettered flesh and ravaged soul, 
Night of anarchic chaos, darkening the deep, 
Swallowing up cities, kingdoms, empires, gods. 
With vaster gloom approaching, till the sun 
Of love was blackened, the moon of faith was 

blood. 
All round our England, our small struggling star, 
Fortress of freedom, rock o' the world's desire, 
Bearing at last the hope of all mankind. 
The thickening darkness surged, and close at hand 

229 



DRAKE 



Those first fierce cloudy fringes of the storm, 
The Armada sails, gathered their might; and 

Rome 
Crouched close behind them with her screaming 

fires 
And steaming shambles, — Rome, the hell-hag, 

crouched, 
Still grasping with red hand the cross of Christ 
By Its great hilt, pointing it like a dagger. 
Spear-head of the ultimate darkness, at the 

throat 
Of England. Under Philip's feet at last 
Writhed all the Protestant Netherlands, dini 

coasts 
Right over against us, whence his panoplies 
Might suddenly whelm our isle. But all night 

long, 
On many a mountain, many a guardian height. 
From Beachy Head to Sklddaw, little groups 
Of seamen, torch and battle-lanthorn nigh, 
Watched by the brooding unlit beacons, piled 
Of furze and gorse, funereal peat, rough logs. 
Reeking with oil, 'mid sharp scents of the sea, 

230 



BOOK IX 



Waste trampled grass and heather and close- 
cropped thyme, 

High o'er the thundering coast, among whose 
rocks 

Far, far below, the pacing coast-guards gazed 

Steadfastly seaward through the loaded dusk. 

And through that deepening gloom when, as It 
seemed, 

All England held her breath in one grim doubt. 

Swift rumours flashed from North to South as 
runs 

The lightning round a silent thunder-cloud; 

And there were muttering crowds i' the London 
streets. 

And hurrying feet i' the brooding Eastern ports. 

All night, dark inns, gathering the country-side. 

Reddened with clashing auguries of war. 

All night, i' the ships of Plymouth Sound, the 
soul 

Of Francis Drake was England, and all night 

Her singing seamen by the silver quays 

Polished their guns and waited for the dawn. 

But hour by hour that night grew deeper. Spain 

231 



DRAKE 



Watched, cloud by cloud, her huge Armadas 

grow; 
Watched, tower by tower and zone by zone, her 

fleets 
Grapple the sky with a hundred hands and drag 
Whole sea-horizons into her menacing ranks. 
Joining her powers to the fierce night, while 

Philip 
Still strove, with many a crafty word, to lull 
The fears of Glorlana, till his plots 
Were ripe, his armaments complete; and still 
Great Glorlana took her woman's way, 
Preferring ever tortuous Intrigue 
To battle, since the stakes had grown so great; 
Now, more than ever, hoping against hope 
To find some subtler means of victory; 
Yet not without swift Impulses to strike. 
Swiftly recalled. Blind, yet not blind, she smiled 
On Mary of Scotland waiting for her throne, — 
A throne with many a strange dark tremour 

thrilled 
Now as the rumoured murderous mines below 
Converged towards It, mine and countermine, 

232 



BOOK IX 



Till the live earth was honeycombed with death. 
Still with her agate smile, still she delayed, 
Holding her pirate admiral in the leash, 
Till Walsingham, nay, even the hunchback 

Burleigh, 
That crafty king of statesmen, seeing at last 
The inevitable thunder-crash at hand, 
Grew heart-sick with delay and ached to shatter 
The tense tremendous hush that seemed to oppress 
All hearts, compress all brows, load the broad 

night 
With more than mortal menace. 

Only once 
The night was traversed with one lightning flash. 
One rapier stroke from England, at the heart 
Of Spain, as swiftly parried, yet no less 
A fiery challenge ; for Philip's hate and scorn 
Growing with his Armada's growth, he lured 
With promises of just and friendly trade 
A fleet of English corn-ships to relieve 
His famine-stricken coast. There as they lay 
Within his ports he seized them, one and all, 
To fill the Armada's maw. 

233 



DRAKE 



Whereat the Queen, 
Passive so long, summoned great Walslngham, 
And, still averse from open war, despite 
The battle-hunger burning in his eyes. 
With one strange swift sharp agate smile she 

hissed, 
" Unchain El Draque! '' 

A lightning flash Indeed 
Was this; for he whose little Golden Hynde 
With scarce a score of seamen late had scourged 
The Spanish Main; he whose piratic neck 
Scarcely the Queen's most wily statecraft saved 
From Spain's revenge; he, privateer to the eyes 
Of Spain, but England to all English hearts, 
Gathered together, in all good jollity, 
All help and furtherance himself could wish. 
Before that moon was out, a pirate fleet 
Whereof the like old ocean had not seen — 
Eighteen swift cruisers, two great battleships, 
With pinnaces and store-ships and a force 
Of nigh three thousand men, wherewith to singe 
The beard o' the King of Spain. 

By night they gathered 
234 




Philip II, King of Spain 

From the Painting by Titian 



BOOK IX 



In marvellous wind-whipt inns nigh Plymouth 

Sound, 
Not secretly as, ere the Golden Hynde 
Burst thro' the West, that small adventurous crew 
Gathered beside the Thames, tossing the phrase 
" Pieces of eight " from mouth to mouth, and 

singing 
Great songs of the rich Indies, and those tall 
Enchanted galleons, red with blood and gold, 
Superb with rubles, glorious as clouds, 
Clouds r the sun, with mighty press of sail 
Dragging the sunset out of the unknown world, 
And staining all the grey old seas of Time 
With rich romance; but these, though privateers, 
Or secret knights on Glorlana's quest, 
Recked not If round the glowing magic door 
Of every Inn the townsfolk grouped to hear 
The storm-scarred seamen toasting Francis Drake, 
Nor heeded what blithe urchin faces pressed 
On each red-curtained magic casement, bright 
With wild reflection of the fires within. 
The fires, the glasses and the singing lips 
Lifting defiance to the powers of Spain. 

235 



DRAKE 



Song 

Sing we the Rose, 

The flower of flowers most glorious! 
Never a storm that blows 

Across our English sea 
But Its heart breaks out wl' the Rose 

On England's flag victorious, 
The triumphing flag that flows 

Thro' the heavens of Liberty. 

Sing we the Rose, 

The flower of flowers most beautiful ! 
Until the world shall end 

She blossometh year by year, 
Red with the blood that flows 

For England's sake, most dutiful. 
Wherefore now we bend 

Our hearts and knees to her. 

Sing we the Rose, 

The flower, the flower of war It Is, 
Where deep i' the midnight gloom 
236 



BOOK IX 



Its waves are the waves of the sea, 
And the glare of battle grows, 

And red over hulk and spar it Is, 
Till the grim black broadsides bloom, 

With our Rose of Victory. 

Sing we the Rose, 

The flower, the flower of love It Is, 
Which lovers aye shall sing 

And nightingales proclaim; 
For oh, the heaven that glows. 

That glows and burns above It Is 
Freedom's perpetual Spring, 

Our England's faithful fame. 

Sing we the Rose, 

That Eastward still shall spread for us 
Upon the dawn's bright breast. 

Red leaves wl' the foam impearled; 
And onward ever flows 

Till eventide make red for us 
A Rose that sinks T the West 

And surges round the world; 
Sing we the Rose! 
237 



DRAKE 



One night as, with his great vice-admiral, 
Frobisher, his rear-admiral, Francis Knollys, 
And Thomas Fenner, his flag-captain, Drake 
Took counsel at his tavern, there came a knock, 
The door opened, and cold as from the sea 
The gloom rushed in, and there against the night. 
Clad as it seemed with wind and cloud and rain, 
Glittered a courtier, whom by face and form 
All knew for the age's brilliant paladin, 
Sidney, the king of courtesy, a star 
Of chivalry. The seamen stared at him. 
Each with a hand upon the red-lined chart 
Outspread before them. Then all stared at 

Drake, 
Who crouched like a great bloodhound o'er the 

table, 
And rose with a strange light burning in his eyes ; 
For he remembered how, three years agone. 
That other courtier came, with words and smiles 
Copied from Sidney's self; and in his ears 
Rang once again the sound of the headsman's ax 
Upon the desolate Patagonian shore 
Beneath Magellan's gallows. With a voice 

238 



BOOK IX 



So harsh himself scarce knew It, he desired 
This fair new courtier's errand. With grim eyes 
He scanned the silken knight from head to foot, 
While Sidney, smiling graciously, besought 
Some place in their adventure. Drake's clenched 

fist 
Crashed down on the old oak table like a rock, 
Splintering the wood and dashing his rough wrist 
With blood, as he thundered, " By the living God, 
No! We've no room for courtiers, now! We 

leave 
All that to Spain." 

Whereat, seeing Sidney stood 
Amazed, Drake, drawing nearer, said, "You ask 
More than you dream : I know you for a knight 
Most perfect and most gentle — yea, a man 
Ready to die on any battle-field 
To save a wounded friend " (even so said Drake, 
Not knowing hov/ indeed this knight would die, — • 
Yea, yield the cup of water from his lips 
To save a wounded soldier, saying, " His need 
Is greater! ") 

Drake outstretched his bleeding hand 
239 



DRAKE 



And pointed through the door to where the gloom 
Glimmered with bursting spray, and the thick 

night 
Was all one wandering thunder of hidden seas 
Rolling out of Eternity: "You'll find 
No purple fields of Arcady out there, 
No shepherds piping In those boisterous valleys, 
No sheep among those roaring mountain-tops. 
No lists of feudal chivalry. I've heard 
That voice cry death to courtiers. 'TIs God's 

voice. 
Take you the word of one who has occupied 
His business In great waters. There's no room. 
Meaning, or reason, office, or place, or name 
For courtiers on the sea. Does the sea flatter? 
You cannot bribe it, torture It, or tame it ! 
Its laws are those of the Juggernaut universe. 
Remorseless — listen to that ! " — a mighty wave 
Broke thundering down the coast; " your hands are 

white. 
Your rapier jewelled, can you grapple that? 
What part have you in all Its flaming ways? 
What share In its fierce gloom? Has your heart 

broken 

240 



BOOK IX 



As those waves break out there? Can you lie 

down 
And sleep, as a lion-cub by the old lion, 
When it shakes its mane out over you to hide you, 
And leap out with the dawn as I have done? 
These are big words; but, see, my hand is red: 
You cannot torture me, I have borne all that; 
And so I have some kinship with the sea. 
Some sort of wild alliance with its storms. 
Its exultations, ay, and its great wrath 
At last, and power upon them. 'Tis the worse 
For Spain. Be counselled well : come not between 
My sea and its rich vengeance.'* 

Silently, 
Bowing his head, Sidney withdrew. But Drake, 
So fiercely the old grief rankled in his heart. 
Summoned his swiftest horseman, bidding him 

ride, 
Ride like the wind through the night, straight to 

the Queen, 
Praying she would most instantly recall 
Her truant courtier. Nay, to make all sure, 
Drake sent a gang of seamen out to crouch 
Ambushed in woody hollows nigh the road, 

241 



DRAKE 



Under the sailing moon, there to waylay 
The Queen's reply, that she might never know 
It reached him, if it proved against his will. 

And swiftly came that truant's stern recall; 
But Drake, in hourly dread of some new change 
In Gloriana's mood, slept not by night 
Or day, till out of roaring Plymouth Sound 
The pirate fleet swept to the wind-swept main. 
And took the wind and shook out all its sails. 
Then with the unfettered sea he mixed his soul 
In great rejoicing union, while the ships 
Crashing and soaring o'er the heart-free waves 
Drave ever straight for Spain. 

Water and food 
They lacked; but the fierce fever of his mind 
To sail from Plymouth ere the Queen's will 

changed 
Had left no time for these. Right on he drave. 
Determining, though the Queen's old officers 
Beneath him stood appalled, to take in stores 
Of all he needed, — water, powder, food, — 
By plunder of Spain herself. In Vigo Bay, 

242 



BOOK IX 



Close to Bayona town, under the cliffs 
Of Spain's world-wide and thunder-fraugut 

prestige 
He anchored, with the old sea-touch that wakes 
Our England still. There, in the tingling ears 
Of the world he cried, En garde! to the King of 

Spain. 
There, ordering out his pinnaces In force, 
While a great storm, as if he held indeed 
Heaven's batteries in reserve, growled o'er the sea. 
He landed. Ere one cumbrous limb of all 
The monstrous armaments of Spain could move 
His ships were stored; and ere the sword of Spain 
Stirred in its crusted sheath, Bayona town 
Beheld an empty sea; for like a dream 
The pirate fleet had vanished, none knew whithen 
But, in its visible stead, invisible fear 
Filled the vast rondure of the sea and sky 
As with the omnipresent soul of Drake. 
For when Spain saw the small black anchored fleet 
Ride in her bays, the sight set bounds to fear. 
She knew at least the ships were oak, the guns 
Of common range : nor did she dream e'en Drake 

243 



DRAKE 



Could sail two seas at once. Now all her coasts 
Heard him all night in every bursting wave, 
His topsails gleamed in every moonlit cloud; 
His battle-lanthorns glittered in the stars 
That hung the low horizon. He became 
A universal menace; yet there followed 
No sight or sound of him, unless the sea 
Were that grim soul incarnate. Did it not roar 
His great commands ? The very spray that lashed 
The cheeks of Spanish seamen lashed their 

hearts 
To helpless hatred of him. The wind sang 
El Draqiie across the rattling blocks and sheets 
When storms perplexed them; and when ships 

went down, 
As under the fury of his onsetting battle. 
The drowning sailors cursed him while they sank. 

Suddenly a rumour shook the Spanish Court : 
He has gone once more to the Indies. Santa Cruz, 
High Admiral of Spain, the most renowned 
Captain in Europe, clamoured for a fleet 
Of forty sail instantly to pursue. 

244 



BOOK IX 



For unto him whose little Golden Hynde 
Was weapon enough, now leading such a squadron, 
The West Indies, the whole Pacific coast, 
And the whole Spanish Main, lay at his mercy. 
And onward over the great grey gleaming sea 
Swept like a thunder-cloud the pirate fleet 
With vengeance in Its heart. Five years agone. 
Young Hawkins, in the Cape Verde Islands, met — 
At Santiago — with such treachery 
As Drake burned to requite, and from that hour 
Was Santiago doomed. His chance had come; 
Drake swooped upon it, plundered It, and was 

gone. 
Leaving the treacherous isle a desolate heap 
Of smoking ashes in the leaden sea, 
While onward all those pirate bowsprits plunged 
Into the golden West, across the broad 
Atlantic once again; " For I will show,'* 
Said Drake, ^' that Englishmen henceforth will 

sail 
Old ocean where they will." Onward they surged. 
And the great glittering crested majestic waves 
Jubilantly rushed up to meet the keels, 

245 



DRAKE 



And there was nought around them but the grey 
Ruin and roar of the huge Atlantic seas, 
Grey mounded seas, pursuing and pursued. 
That fly, hounded and hounding on for ever, 
From empty marge to marge of the grey sky. 
Over the wandering wilderness of foam. 
Onward, through storm and death, Drake swept; 

for now 
Once more a fell plague gripped the tossing ships, 
And not by twos and threes as heretofore 
His crews were minlshed; but In three black days 
Three hundred seamen In their shotted shrouds 
Were cast Into the deep. Onward he swept, 
Implacably, having in mind to strike 
Spain In the throat at St. Domingo, port 
Of HIspanlola, a city of far renown, 
A jewel on the shores of old romance, 
Palm-shadowed, gated with Immortal gold. 
Queen city of Spain's dominions over sea. 
And guarded by great guns. Out of the dawn 
The pirate ships came leaping, grim and black, 
And ere the Spaniards were awake, the flag 
Of England floated from their topmost tower. 

246 



BOOK IX 



But since he had not troops enough to hold 
So great a city, Drake entrenched his men 
Within the Plaza and held the batteries. 
Thence he demanded ransom, and sent out 
A boy with flag of truce. The boy's return 
Drake waited long. Under a sheltering palm 
He stood, watching the enemies' camp; and, lol 
Along the hot white purple-shadowed road 
Tow'rds him, a crawling shape writhed through 

the dust 
Up to his feet, a shape besmeared with blood — 
A shape that held the stumps up of its wrists 
And moaned, an eyeless thing: a naked rag 
Of flesh obscenely mangled, a small face 
Hideously puckered, shrivelled like a monkey's. 
With lips drawn backward from its teeth. 

" Speak, speak. 
In God's name, speak, what art thou? " whispered 

Drake, 
And a sharp cry came, answering his dread — 
A cry as of a sea-bird in the wind 
Desolately astray from all earth's shores: 
" Captain, I am thy boy, only thy boy I 

247 



DRAKE 



See, see, my captain : see what they have done ! 
Captain, I only bore the flag; I only " 

"O lad, lad, lad! " moaned Drake, and stooping 

strove 
To pillow the mangled head upon his arm. 
"What have they done to thee; what have they 

done?" 
And at the touch, the boy screamed once and died. 

Then like a savage sea with arms uplift 

To heaven the wrath of Drake blazed thundering, 

" Eternal God, be this the doom of Spain! 

Henceforward have no pity. Send the strength 

Of Thy great seas Into my soul, that I 

May devastate this empire — this red hell 

They make of Thy good earth." 

His men drew round, 
Staring In horror at the silent shape 
That daubed his feet. Like a cold wind 
His words went through their flesh : 

" This is the lad 
That bore our flag of truce. This hath Spain 
done. 

248 



BOOK IX 



Look well upon it; draw the smoke of the blood 
Up Into your nostrils, my companions, 
And down Into your souls. This makes an end 
For Spain! Bring forth the Spanish prisoners 
And let me look on them." 

Forth they were brought, 
A swarthy gorgeous band of soldiers, priests, 
And sailors, hedged between two sturdy files 
Of British tars with naked cutlasses. 
Close up to Drake they halted, under the palm. 
Gay smiling prisoners, for they thought their 

friends 
Had ransomed them. Then they looked up and 

met 
A glance that swept athwart them like a sword. 
Making the blood strain back from their blanched 

faces 
Into their quivering hearts, with unknown dread. 
As that accuser pointed to the shape 
Before his feet. 

" Dogs, will ye lap his blood 
Before ye die? Make haste; for it grows cold I 
Ye will not, will not even dabble your hands 

249 



DRAKE 



In that red puddle of flesh, what? Are ye 

Spaniards? 
Come, come, I'll look at you; perchance there's 

one 
That's but a deml-devil and holds you back." 
And with the word Drake stepped among their 

ranks 
And read each face among the swarthy crew — 
The gorgeous soldiers, ringleted sailors, priests 
With rosary and cross, a slender page 
In scarlet with a cloud of golden hair. 
And two rope-girdled friars. 

The slim page 
Drake drew before the throng. *' You are young," 

he said, 
"Go; take this message to the camp of Spain; 
Tell them I have a hunger In my soul 
To look upon the murderers of this boy, 
To see what eyes they have, what manner of 

mouths ; 
To touch them and to take their hands in mine, 
And draw them close to me and smile upon them 
Until they know my soul as I know theirs, 
And they grovel in the dust and grope for mercy. 

250 



BOOK IX 



Say that, until I get them, every day 
I'll hang two Spaniards, though I dispeople 
The Spanish Main. Tell them that, every day, 
I'll burn a portion of their city down. 
Then find another city and burn that, 
And then burn others till I burn away 
Their empire from the world — ay, till I reach 
The Imperial throne of Philip with my fires, 
And send it shrieking down to burn in hell 
For ever. Go ! " 

Then Drake turned once again 
To face the Spanish prisoners. With a voice 
Cold as the passionless utterance of Fate 
His grim command went forth. " Now, provost- 
marshal, 
Begin with yon two friars, In whose faces 
Chined like singed swine, and eyed with the spent 

coals 
Of filthy living, sweats the glory of Rome 
And Spain combined, strip of^ their leprous rags 
And twist their ropes around their throats and 

hang them 
High over the Spanish camp for all to see. 
At dawn I'll choose two more." 

251 



BOOK X 

A CROSS the Atlantic 
/ ^ Great rumours rushed as of a mighty 
^ % wind, 

The wind of the spirit of Drake. But 

who shall tell 
In this cold age the power that he became 
Who drew the universe within his soul 
And moved with cosmic forces? Though the deep 
Divided It from Drake, the gorgeous court 
Of Philip shuddered away from the streaming 

coasts 
As a wind-cuffed field of golden wheat. The 

King, 
Bidding his guests to a feast in his own ship 
On that wind-darkened sea, was made a mock. 
As one by one his ladles proffered excuse 
For fear of That beyond. Round Europe now 
Ballad and story told how in the cabin 
Of Francis Drake there hung a magic glass 

252 



BOOK X 



Wherein he saw the fleets of all his enemies 
And all that passed aboard them. Rome herself, 
Perplexed that this proud heretic should prevail, 
Fostered a darker dream that Drake had bought, 
Like old Norse wizards, power to loose or bind 
The winds at will. 

And now a wilder tale 
Flashed o'er the deep — of a distant blood-red dawn 
O'er San Domingo, where the embattled troops 
Of Spain and Drake were met — but not in war — 
Met In the dawn, by his compelling will, 
To offer up a sacrifice. Yea, there 
Between the hosts, the hands of Spain herself 
Slaughtered the Spanish murderers of the boy 
Who had borne Drake's flag of truce; offered 

them up 
As a blood-offering and an expiation, 
Lest Drake, with that dread alchemy of his soul, 
Should e'en transmute the dust beneath their feet 
To one same substance with the place of pain 
And whelm them suddenly In the eternal fires 
Rumour on rumour rushed across the sea. 
Large mockeries, and one most bitter of all, 

253 



DRAKE 



Wormwood to Philip, of how Drake had stood 
r the governor's house at San Domingo, and seen 
A mighty scutcheon of the King of Spain 
Whereon was painted the terrestrial globe, 
And on the globe a mighty steed In act 
To spring Into the heavens, and from its mouth 
Streaming like smoke a scroll, and on the scroll 
Three words of flame and fury — Non sufficit 
Orhis — of how Drake and his seamen stood 
Gazing upon It, and could not forbear 
From summoning the Spaniards to expound 
Its meaning, whereupon a hurricane roar 
Of mirth burst from those bearded British lips. 
And that Immortal laughter shook the world. 

So, while the imperial warrior eyes of Spain 
Watched, every hour, her vast Armada grow 
Readier to launch and shatter with one stroke 
Our island's frail defence, fear gripped her still, 
For there came sounds across the heaving sea 
Of secret springs unsealed, forces unchained, 
A mustering of deep elemental powers, 
A sound as of the burgeoning of boughs 

254 



BOOK X 



In universal April and dead hearts 

Uprising from their tombs; a mighty cry 

Of resurrection, surging through the souls 

Of all mankind. For now the last wild tale 

Swept like another dawn across the deep; 

And, In that dawn, men saw the slaves of Spain, 

The mutilated negroes of the mines. 

With gaunt backs wealed and branded, scarred 

and seared 
By whip and iron, in Spain's brute lust for gold, 
Saw them, at Drake's great liberating word 
Burst from their chains, erect, uplifting hands 
Of rapture to the glad new light that then. 
Then first, began to struggle thro' the clouds 
And crown all manhood with a sacred crown 
August — a light which, though from age to age 
Clouds may obscure it, grows and still shall grow, 
Until that Kingdom come, that grand Com- 
munion, 
That Commonweal, that Empire, which still draws 
Nigher with every hour, that Federation, 
That turning of the wasteful strength of war 
To accomplish large and fruitful tasks of peace, 

255 



DRAKE 



That gathering up of one another's loads, 
Whereby the weak are strengthened and the strong 
Made stronger in the increasing good of all. 
Then, suddenly, It seemed, as he had gone, 
A ship came stealing Into Plymouth Sound 
And Drake was home again, but not to rest; 
For scarce had he cast anchor ere the road 
To London rang beneath the flying hoofs 
That bore his brief despatch to Burleigh, saying — 
"We have missed the Plate Fleet by but twelve 

hours' sail, 
The reason being best known to God. No less 
We have given a cooling to the King of Spain. 
There is a great gap opened which, methinks. 
Is little to his liking. We have sacked 
The towns of his chief Indies, burnt their ships. 
Captured great store of gold and precious stones, 
Three hundred pieces of artillery, 
The more part brass. Our loss Is heavy Indeed, 
Under the hand of God, eight hundred men. 
Three parts of them by sickness. Captain Moone, 
My trusty old companion, he that struck 
The first blow in the South Seas at a Spaniard, 

256 



BOOK X 



Died of a grievous wound at Cartagena. 

My fleet and I are ready to strike again 

At once, where'er the Queen and England please. 

I pray for her commands, and those with speed, 

That I may strike again." Outside the scroll 

These words were writ once more — " My Queen's 

commands 
I much desire, your servant, Francis Drake." 

This terse despatch the hunchback Burleigh read 
Thrice over, with the broad cliff of his brow 
Bending among his tfooks. Thrice he assayed 
To steel himself with caution as of old; 
And thrice, as a glorious lightning running along 
And flashing between those simple words, he saw 
The great new power that lay at England's hand, 
An ocean sovereignty — a power unknown 
Before, but dawning now; a power that swept 
All earth's old plots and counterplots away 
Like straws ; the germ of an unmeasured force 
New-born, that laid the source of Spanish might 
At England's mercy ! Could that force but grow 
Ere Spain should nip it, ere the mighty host 

257 



DRAKE 



That waited In the Netherlands even now, 
That host of thirty thousand men encamped 
Round Antwerp, under Parma, should embark 
Convoyed by that Invincible Armada 
To leap at England's throat! Thrice he assayed 
To think of England's helplessness, her ships 
Little and few. Thrice he assayed to quench 
With caution the high furnace of his soul 
Which Drake had kindled. As he read the last 
Rough simple plea, / wait my Queen^s commands^ 
His deep eyes flashed with glorious tears. 

He leapt 
To his feet and cried aloud, " Before my God, 
I am proud, I am very proud for England's sake ! 
This Drake is a terrible man to the King of Spain." 

And still, still, Glorlana, brooding darkly 
On Mary of Scotland's doom, who now at last 
Was plucked from out her bosom like a snake 
Hissing of war with France, a queenly snake, 
A Lilith in whose lovely gleaming folds 
And sexual bonds the judgment of mankind 
Writhes even yet half-strangled, meting out 

258 



BOOK X 



Wild execrations on the maiden Queen 

Who quenched those jewelled eyes and mixt with 

dust 
That white and crimson, who with cold sharp steel 
In substance and In spirit, severed the neck 
And straightened out those glittering supple coils 
For ever; though for evermore will men 
Lie subject to the unforgotten gleam 
Of diamond eyes and cruel crimson mouth, 
And curse the sword-bright intellect that struck 
Like lightning far through Europe and the world 
For England, when amid the embattled fury 
Of world-wide empires, England stood alone. 
Still she held back from war, still disavowed 
The deeds of Drake to Spain; and yet once more 
Philip, resolved at last never to swerve 
By one digressive stroke, one ell or inch 
From his own patient, sure, laborious path, 
Accepted her suave plea, and with all speed 
Pressed on his huge emprise until it seemed 
His coasts groaned with grim bulks of cannonry. 
Thick loaded hulks of thunder and towers of 

doom ; 

259 



DRAKE 



And, all round Antwerp, Parma still prepared 
To hurl such armies o'er the rolling sea 
As in all history hardly the earth herself 
Felt shake with terror her own green hills and 

plains. 
/ wait my Queen^s commands! Despite the plea 
Urged every hour upon her with the fire 
That burned for action in the soul of Drake. 
Still she delayed, till on one darkling eve 
She gave him audience in that glimmering room 
Where first he saw her. Strangely sounded there 
The seaman's rough strong passion as he poured 
His heart before her, pleading — " Every hour 
Is one more victory lost," and only heard 
The bitter answer — " Nay, but every hour 
Is a breath snatched from the unconquerable 
Doom, that awaits us if we are forced to war. 
Yea, and who knows? — though Spain may forge 

a sword, 
Its point is not inevitably bared 
Against the breast of England! " As she spake, 
The winds without clamoured with clash of bells, 
There was a gleam of torches and a roar — 

260 



BOOK X 



Mary, the traitress of the North, is dead, 
God save the Queen! 

Her head bent down : she wept. 
" Pity me, friend, though I be queen, O yet 
My heart is woman, and I am sore pressed 
On every side, — Scotland and France and Spain 
Beset me, and I know not where to turn." 
Even as she spake, there came a hurried step 
Into that dim, rich chamber. Walslngham 
Stood there, before her, without ceremony 
Thrusting a letter forth: "At last," he cried, 
*' Your Majesty may read the full intent 
Of Spain and Rome. Here, plainly written out 
Upon this paper, worth your kingdom's crown. 
This letter, stolen by a trusty spy, 
Out of the inmost chamber of the Pope 
Sixtus himself, here is your murder planned: 
Blame not your Ministers, who with such haste 
Plucked out this viper, Mary, from your breast! 
Read here — how, with his thirty thousand men, 
The pick of Europe, Parma joins the Scots, 
While Ireland, grasped in their Armada's clutch. 
And the Isle of Wight, against our west and south 

261 



DRAKE 



Become their base." 

" Rome, Rome, and Rome again, 
And always Rome," she muttered; "even here 
In England hath she thousands yet. She hath 

struck 
Her curse out with pontific finger at me, 
Cursed me down and away to the bottomless pit. 
Her shadow like the shadow of clouds or sails. 
The shadow of that huge event at hand, 
Darkens the seas already, and the wind 
Is on my cheek that shakes my kingdom down. 
She hath thousands here in England, born and bred 
Englishmen. They will stand by Rome ! " 

" 'Fore God," 
Cried Walsingham, " my Queen, you do them 

wrong ! 
There is another Rome — not this that lurks 
And lies and plucks the world back into darkness, 
And stabs It there for gold. There is a City 
Whose eyes are tow'rd the morning; on whose 

heights 
Blazes the Cross of Christ above the world; 
A Rome that shall wage warfare yet for God 

262 



BOOK X 



In the dark days to come — a Rome whose thought 
Shall march with our humanity and be proud 
To cast old creeds like seed into the ground, 
Watch the strange shoots and foster the new flower 
Of faiths we know not yet. Is this a dream? 
I speak as one by knighthood bound to speak; 
For even this day — and my heart burns with it — 
I heard the Catholic gentlemen of England 
Speaking in grave assembly. At one breath 
Of peril to our island, why, their swords 
Leapt from their scabbards, and their cry went up 
To split the heavens — God save our English 

Queen/** 
Even as he spake there passed the rushing gleam 
Of torches once again, and as they stood 
Silently listening, all the winds ran wild 
With clamouring bells, and a great cry went up — 
God save Elizabeth, our English Queen! 

" I'll vouch for some two hundred Catholic throats 
Among that thousand," whispered Walsingham 
Eagerly, with his eyes on the Queen's face. 
Then, seeing it brighten, fervently he cried, 

263 



DRAKE 



Pressing the swift advantage home, " O Madam, 

The heart of England now is all on firel 

We are one people, as we never have been 

In all our history, all prepared to die 

Around your throne. Madam, you are beloved 

As never yet was English king or queen! " 

She looked at him, the tears in her keen eyes 

Glittered — " And I am very proud," she said, 

*' But if our enemies command the world. 

And we have one small island and no more . . ." 

She ceased; and Drake, in a strange voice, hoarse 

and low. 
Trembling with passion deeper than all speech. 
Cried out — " No more than the great ocean sea 
Which makes the enemies' coast our frontier now; 
No more than that great Empire of the deep 
Which rolls from Pole to Pole, washing the world 
With thunder, that great Empire whose command 
This day is yours to take. Hear me, my Queen, 
This is a dream, a new dream, but a true ; 
For mightier days are dawning on the world 
Than heart of man hath known. If England hold 
The sea, she holds the hundred thousand gates 

264 



BOOK X 



That open to futurity. She holds 
The highway of all ages. Argosies 
Of unknown glory set their sails this day 
For England out of ports beyond the stars. 
Ay, on the sacred seas we ne'er shall know 
They hoist their sails this day by peaceful quays, 
Great gleaming wharves i' the perfect City of 

God, 
If she but claim her heritage." 

He ceased; 
And the deep dream of that new realm, the sea, 
Through all the soul of Gloriana surged 
A moment; then, with splendid eyes that filled 
With fire of sunsets far away, she cried 
(Faith making her a child, yet queenlier still), 
** Yea, claim it thou for me I " 

A moment there 
Trembling she stood. Then, once again, there 

passed 
A rush of torches through the gloom without, 
And a great cry ^^God save Elizabeth, 
God save our English Queen! " 

" Yea go, then, go," 
265 



DRAKE 



She said, " God speed you now, Sir Francis Drake, 
Not as a privateer, but with full powers, 
My Admiral-at-the-Seas ! " 

Without a word 
Drake bent above her hand and, ere she knew it, 
His eyes from the dark doorway flashed farewell, 
And he was gone. But ere he leapt to saddle 
Walsingham stood at his stirrup, muttering " Ride, 
Ride now like hell to Plymouth ; for the Queen 
Is hard beset, and ere ye are out at sea 
Her mood will change. The friends of Spain will 

move 
Earth and the heavens for your recall. They'll 

tempt her 
With their false baits of peace, though I shall 

stand 
Here at your back through thick and thin, — 

farewell!'' 
Fire flashed beneath the hoofs, and Drake was 

gone. 

Scarce had he vanished in the night than doubt 
Once more assailed the Queen. The death of 
Mary 

266 



BOOK X 



Had brought e^en France against her. Walsing- 

ham, 
And Burleigh himself, prime mover of that death, 
Being held in much disfavour for it, stood 
As helpless. Long ere Drake or human power. 
They thought, could put to sea, a courier sped 
To Plymouth bidding Drake forbear to strike 
At Spain, but keep to the high seas, and, lo ! 
The roadstead glittered empty. Drake was gone I 

Gone ! Though the friends of Spain had poured 

their gold 
To thin his ranks, and every hour his crews 
Deserted, he had laughed — " Let Spain buy scum I 
Next to an honest seaman I love best 
An honest landsman. What more goodly task 
Than teaching brave men seamanship? '' He had 

filled 
His ships with soldiers ! Out in the teeth of the 

gale 
That raged against him he had driven. In vain. 
Amid the boisterous laughter of the quays, 
A pinnace dashed in hot pursuit, and met 

267 



DRAKE 



A roaring breaker and came hurtling back 
With oars and spars all trailing In the foam, 
A tangled mass of wreckage and despair. 
Sky swept to stormy sky : no sail could live 
In that great yeast of waves ; but Drake was gone ! 

Then, once again, across the rolling sea 

Great rumours rushed of how he had sacked the 

port 
Of Cadiz and had swept along the coast 
To Lisbon, where the whole Armada lay, 
Had snapped up prizes under Its very nose, 
And taunted Santa Cruz, High Admiral 
Of Spain, striving to draw him out for fight, 
And offering, If his course should He that way, 
To convoy him to Britain, taunted him 
So bitterly that for once, In the world's eyes 
A jest had power to kill; for Santa Cruz 
Died with the spleen of It, since he could not move 
Before the appointed season. Then there came 
Flying back home, the Queen's old Admiral 
Borough, deserting Drake, and all aghast 
At Drake's temerity: " For," he said, " this man, 

268 



iki 



BOOK X 



Thrust o'er my head, against all precedent, 
Bade me follow him into harbour mouths 
A-flame with cannon like the jaws of death, 
Whereat I much demurred; and straightway 

Drake 
Clapped me in irons, me — ^an officer 
And Admiral of the Queen; and, though my voice 
Was all against it, plunged into the pit 
Without me, left me with some word that burns 
And rankles in me still, making me fear 
The man was mad, some word of lonely seas 
A desert island and a mutineer 
And dead Magellan's gallows. Sirs, my life 
Was hardly safe with him. Why, he resolved 
To storm the Castle of St. Vincent, sirs, 
A castle on a cliff, grinning with guns, 
Well-known impregnable! The Spaniards fear 
Drake ; but to see him land below it and bid 
Surrender, sirs, the strongest fort of Spain 
Without a blow, they laughed ! And straightway 

he. 
With all the fury of Satan, turned that cliff 
To hell itself. He sent down to the ships 

^69 



DRAKE 



For faggots, broken oars, beams, bowsprits, masts, 
And piled them up against the outer gates. 
Higher and higher, and fired them. There he 

stood 
Amid the smoke and flame and cannon-shot, 
This Admiral, like a common seaman, black 
With soot, besmeared with blood, his naked arms 
Full of great faggots, labouring like a giant 
And roaring like Apollyon. Sirs, he is mad! 
But did he take it, say you? Yea, he took it. 
The mightiest stronghold on the coast of Spain, 
Took it and tumbled all its big brass guns 
Clattering over the cliffs into the sea. 
But, sirs, ye need not raise a cheer so loud I 
It is not warfare. 'Twas a madman's trick, 
A devil's I" 

Then the rumour of a storm 
That scattered the fleet of Drake to the four winds 
Disturbed the heart of England, as his ships 
Came straggling into harbour, one by one, 
Saying they could not find him. Then, at last, 
When the storm burst in its earth-shaking might 
Along our coasts, one night of rolling gloom 

270 



BOOK X 



His cannon woke old Plymouth. In he came 
Across the thunder and lightning of the sea 
With his grim ship of war, and close behind 
A shadow like a mountain or a cloud 
Torn from the heaven-high panoplies of Spain, 
A captured galleon loomed, and round her prow 
A blazoned scroll, whence (as she neared the quays 
Which many a lanthorn swung from brawny fist 
Yellowed) the sudden crimson of her name 
San Filippe flashed o'er the white sea of faces, 
And a rending shout went skyward that outroared 
The blanching breakers — " 'Tis the heart of 

Spain ! 
The great San Filippe! '* Overhead she towered, 
The mightiest ship afloat; and In her hold 
The riches of a continent, a prize 
Greater than earth had ever known; for there 
Not only ruby and pearl like ocean beaches 
Heaped on some wizard coast In that dim hull 
Blazed to the lanthorn light; not only gold 
Gleamed, though of gold a million would not buy 
Her store; but In her cabin lay the charts 
And secrets of the wild unwhispered wealth 

271 



DRAKE 



Of India — secrets that splashed London wharves 
With coloured dreams and made her misty streets 
Flame like an Eastern City when the sun 
Shatters itself on jewelled domes and spills 
Its crimson wreckage thro' the silvery palms. 
And of those dreams the far East India quest 
Began : the first foundation-stone was laid 
Of our great Indian Empire, and a star 
Began to tremble on the brows of England 
That Time can never darken. 

But now the seas 
Darkened indeed with menace; now at last 
The cold wind of the black approaching wings 
Of Azrael crept across the deep : the storm 
Throbbed with their thunderous pulse, and ere 

that moon 
Waned, a swift gunboat foamed into the Sound 
With word that all the Invincible Armada 
Was hoisting sail for England. 

Even now, 
Elizabeth, torn a thousand ways, withheld 
The word for which Drake pleaded as for life, 

272 



BOOK X 



That he might meet them ere they left their coasts, 
Meet them or ever they reached the Channel, meet 

them 
Now, or — " Too late I too late ! " At last his voice 
Beat down e'en those that blindly dinned her ears 
With chatter of meeting Spain on British soil; 
And swiftly she commanded (seeing once more 
The light that burned amid the approaching 

gloom 
In Drake's deep eyes) Lord Howard of 

Effingham, 
High Admiral of England, straight to join him 
At Plymouth Sound. "How many ships are 

wanted?" 
She asked him, thinking " we are few, indeed! " 
" Give me but sixteen merchantmen," he said, 
" And but four battleships, by the mercy of God, 
I'll answer for the Armada ! " Out to sea 
They swept, in the teeth of a gale; but vainly 

Drake 
Strove to impart the thought wherewith his mind 
Travailed — to win command of the ocean sea 
By bursting on the fleets of Spain at once 

273 



DRAKE 



Even as they left their ports, not as of old 

To hover In a vain dream of defence 

Round fifty threatened points of British coast, 

But Howard, clinging to his old-world order. 

Flung out his ships in a loose, long, straggling line 

Across the Channel, waiting, wary, alert, 

But powerless thus as a string of scattered sea-gulls 

Beating against the storm. Then, flying to meet 

them, 
A merchantman brought terror down the wind, 
With news that she had seen that monstrous host 
Stretching from sky to sky, great hulks of doom, 
Dragging death's midnight with them o'er the sea 
TowVds England. Up to Howard's flag^ship 

Drake 
In his Immortal battle-ship — Revenge, 
Rushed thro' the foam, and thro' the swirling seas 
His pinnace dashed alongside. On to the decks 
O' the tossing flag-ship, like a very Viking 
Shaking the surf and rainbows of the spray 
From sun-smit lion-like mane and beard he stood 
Before Lord Howard in the escutcheoned poop 
And poured his heart out like the rending sea 

274 



BOOK X 



In passionate wave on wave: 

" If yonder fleet 
Once reach the Channel, hardly the mercy of God 
Saves England! I would pray with my last 

breath, 
Let us beat up to windward of them now, 
And handle them before they reach the Channel." 
"Nay; but we cannot bare the coast," cried 

Howard, 
" Nor have we stores of powder or food enough ! " 
" My lord," said Drake, with his great arm 

outstretched, 
" There is food enough In yonder enemy's ships. 
And powder enough and cannon-shot enough ! 
We must revictual there. Look! look I " he cried, 
And pointed to the heavens. As for a soul 
That by sheer force of will compels the world 
To work his bidding, so It seemed the wind 
That blew against them slowly veered. The sails 
Quivered, the skies revolved. A northerly breeze 
Awoke, and now, behind the British ships. 
Blew steadily tow'rds the unseen host of Spain. 
" It IS the breath of God," cried Drake, " they lie 

275 



DRAKE 



Wind-bound, and we may work our will with 

them. 
Signal the word, Lord Howard, and drive down 1 '* 
And as a man convinced by Heaven itself 
Lord Howard ordered, straightway, the whole 

fleet 
To advance. 

And now, indeed, as Drake foresaw. 
The Armada lay, beyond the dim horizon, 
Wind-bound and helpless In Corunna Bay, 
At England's mercy, could her fleet but draw 
Nigh enough, with Its fire-ships and great guns 
To windward. Nearer, nearer league by league 
The ships of England came ; till Ushant lay 
Some seventy leagues behind. Then, yet once 

more 
The wind veered, straight against them. To 

remain 

Beating against it idly was to starve: 

And, as a man whose power upon the world 

Fails for one moment of exhausted will, 

Drake, gathering up his forces as he went 

For one more supreme effort, turned his ship 

276 



BOOK X 



Tow'rds Plymouth, and retreated with the rest. 

There, while the ships refitted with all haste 
And ax and hammer rang, one golden eve 
Just as the setting sun began to fringe 
The clouds with crimson, and the creaming waves 
Were one wild riot of fairy rainbows, Drake 
Stood with old comrades on the close-cropped 

green 
Of Plymouth Hoe, playing a game of bowls. 
Far off unseen, a little barque, full-sail, 
Struggled and leapt and strove tow'rds Plymouth 

Sound, 
Noteless as any speckled herring-gull 
Flickering between the white flakes of the waves. 
A group of schoolboys with their satchels lay 
Stretched on the green, gazing with great wide 

eyes 
Upon their seamen heroes, as like gods 
Disporting with the battles of the world 
They loomed, tossing black bowls like cannon-balls 
Against the rosy West, or lounged at ease 
With faces olive-dark against that sky 

277 



DRAKE 



Laughing, while from the neighbouring inn mine 

host, 
White-aproned and blue-jerkined, hurried out 
With foaming cups of sack, and they drank deep. 
Tossing their heads back under the golden clouds 
And burying their bearded lips. The hues 
That slashed their doublets, for the boys* bright 

eyes 
(Even as the gleams of Grecian cloud or moon 
Revealed the old gods) were here rich dusky 

streaks 
Of splendour from the Spanish Main, that shone 
But to proclaim these heroes. There a boy 
More bold crept nearer to a slouched hat thrown 
Upon the green, and touched the silver plume. 
And felt as if he had touched a sunset-Isle 
Of feathery palms beyond a crimson sea. 
Another stared at the blue rings of smoke 
A storm-scarred seaman puffed from a long pipe 
Primed with the strange new herb they had lately 

found 
In far Virginia. But the little ship 
Now plunging into Plymouth Bay none saw. 

278 



BOOK X 



E'en when she had anchored and her straining 

boat 
Had touched the land, and the boat's crew over 

the quays 
Leapt with a shout, scarce was there one to heed. 
A seaman, smiling, swaggered out of the inn 
Swinging in one brown hand a gleaming cage 
Wherein a big green parrot chattered and clung 
Fluttering against the wires. A troop of girls 
With arms linked paused to watch the game of 

bowls ; 
And now they flocked around the cage, while one 
With rosy finger tempted the horny beak 
To bite. Close overhead a sea-mew flashed • 
Seaward. Once, from an open window, soft 
Through trellised leaves, not far away, a voice 
Floated — a voice that flushed the cheek of Drake, 
The voice of Bess, bending her glossy head 
Over the broidery frame, In a quiet song. 

The song ceased. Still, with rainbows in their 
eyes. 

The schoolboys watched the bowls like cannon- 
balls 

279 



DRAKE 



Roll from the hand of gods along the turf. 
Suddenly, towVds the green, a little cloud 
Of seamen, shouting, stumbling, as they ran 
Drew all eyes on them. The game ceased. A 

voice 
Rough with the storms of many an ocean roared, 
" Drake ! Cap'en Drake I The Armada ! 
They are in the Channel I We sighted them — 
A line of battle-ships ! We could not see 
An end of them. They stretch from east to west 
Like a great storm of clouds, glinting with guns, 
From sky to sky I " 

'So, after all his strife, 
The wasted weeks had tripped him, the fierce hours 
Of pleading for the sea's command, great hours 
And golden moments, all were lost. The fleet 
Of Spain had won the Channel without a blow. 
All eyes were turned on Drake, as he stood there 
A giant against the sunset and the sea 
Looming, alone. Far off, the first white star 
Gleamed in a rosy space of heaven. He tossed 
A grim black ball i' the lustrous air and laughed, — 
" Come, lads," he said, " weVe time to finish the 

game I " 

280 



BOOK XI 

FEW minutes, and well wasted those, were 
spent 
On that great game of bowls; for well 
knew Drake 
What panic threatened Plymouth, since his fleet 
Lay trapped there by the black headwind that 

blew 
Straight up the Sound, and Plymouth town itself. 
Except the ships won seaward ere the dawn, 
Lay at the Armada's mercy. Never a seaman 
Of all the sea-dogs clustered on the quays, 
And all the captains clamouring round Lord 

Howard, 
Hoped that one ship might win to the open sea: 
At dawn, they thought, the Armada's rolling 

guns 
To windward, in an hour, must shatter them. 
Huddled in their red slaughter-house like sheep. 

Now was the great sun sunken and the night 

281 



DRAKE 



Dark. Far to Westward, like the soul of man 
Fighting blind nature, a wild flare of red 
Upon some windy headland suddenly leapt 
And vanished flickering into the clouds. Again 
It leapt and vanished : then all at once it streamed 
Steadily as a crimson torch upheld 
By Titan hands to heaven. It was the first 
Beacon I A sudden silence swept along 
The seething quays, and in their midst appeared 
Drake. 

Then the jubilant thunder of his voice 
Rolled, buffeting the sea-wind far and nigh. 
And ere they knew what power as of a sea 
Surged through them, his immortal battle-ship 
Revenge had flung out cables to the quays. 
And while the seamen, as he had commanded, 
Knotted thick ropes together, he stood apart 
(For well he knew what panic threatened still) 
Whittling idly at a scrap of wood, 
And carved a little boat out for the child 
Of some old sea companion. 
So great and calm a master of the world 
Seemed Drake that, as he whittled, and the chips 

2S2 



BOOK XI 



Fluttered Into the blackness over the quay, 
Men said that in this hour of England's need 
Each tiny flake turned to a battle-ship; 
For now began the lanthorns, one by one, 
To glitter, and half-reveal the shadowy hulks 
Before him. — So the huge old legend grew. 
Not all unworthy the Homeric age 
Of gods and godlike men. 

St. Michael's Mount, 
Answering the first wild beacon far away. 
Rolled crimson thunders to the stormy sky! 
The ropes were knotted. Through the panting 

dark 
Great heaving lines of seamen all together 
Hauled with a shout, and all together again 
Hauled with a shout against the roaring wind; 
And slowly, slowly, onward tow'rds the sea 
Moved the Revenge, and seaward ever heaved 
The brawny backs together, and In their midst. 
Suddenly, as they slackened, Drake was there 
Hauling like any ten, and with his heart 
Doubling the strength of all, giving them joy 
Of battle against those odds, — Ay, till they found 

283 



DRAKE 



Delight i' the burning tingle of the blood 
That even their hardy hands must feel besmear 
The harsh, rough, straining ropes. There as they 

toiled. 
Answering a score of hills, old Beachy Head 
Streamed like a furnace to the rolling clouds. 
Then all around the coast each windy ness 
And craggy mountain kindled. Peak from peak 
Caught the tremendous fire, and passed It on 
Round the bluff East and the black mouth of 

Thames, — 
Ay, Northward to the waste wild Yorkshire fells 
And gloomy Cumberland, where, like a giant. 
Great Skiddaw grasped the red tempestuous brand, 
And thrust It up against the reeling heavens. 
Then all night long. Inland, the wandering winds 
Ran wild with clamour and clash of startled bells ; 
All night the cities seethed with torches, flashed 
With twenty thousand flames of burnished steel; 
While over the trample and thunder of hooves 

blazed forth 
The lightning of wild trumpets. Lonely lanes 
Of country darkness, lit by cottage doors 
Entwined with rose and honeysuckle, roared 

284 



BOOK XI 



Like mountain torrents now — East, West, and 

South, 
As to the coasts with pike and musket streamed 
The trained bands, horse and foot, from every 

town 
And every hamlet. All the shaggy hills 
From Milford Haven to the Downs of Kent, 
And up to Humber, gleamed with many a hedge 
Of pikes between the beacon's crimson glares; 
While in red London forty thousand men, 
In case the invader should prevail, drew swords 
Around their Queen. All night in dark St. Paul's, 
While round it rolled a multitudinous roar 
As of the Atlantic on a Western beach. 
And all the leaning London streets were lit 
With fury of torches, rose the passionate prayer 
Of England's peril : 

O Lord God of Hosts, 
Let Thine enemies know that Thou hast taken 
England into Thine hands! 

The mighty sound 
Rolled, billowing round the kneeling aisles, then 

died. 
Echoing up the heights. A voice, far off, 

285 



DRAKE 



As on the cross of Calvary, caught it up 

And poured the prayer o'er that deep hush, alone : 

We beseech thee, O God, to go before our armies, 

Bless and prosper them both by land and sea! 

Grant unto them Thy victory, O God, 

As thou usedst to do to Thy children when they 

please Thee! 
All power, all strength, all victory come from 

Thee! 
Then from the lips of all those thousands burst 
A sound as from the rent heart of an ocean, 
One tumult, one great rushing storm of wings 
Cleaving the darkness round the Gates of Heaven : 
Some put their trust in chariots and some in horses; 
But we will remember Thy name, O Lord, our 

God! 

So, while at Plymouth Sound her seamen toiled 
All through the night, and scarce a ship had won 
Seaward, the heart of England cried to God. 
All night, while trumpets yelled and blared 

without, 
And signal cannon shook the blazoned panes, 

286 



BOOK XI 



And billowing multitudes went thundering by, 
Amid that solemn pillared hush arose 
From lips of kneeling thousands one great prayer 
Storming the Gates of Heaven! O Lord, our 

God, 
Heavenly Father, have mercy upon our Queen, 
To whom Thy far dispersed flock do fly 
In the anguish of their souls. Behold, behold, 
How many princes hand themselves against her. 
How long Thy servant hath laboured to them for 

peace. 
How proudly they prepare themselves for battle! 
Arise, therefore! Maintain Thine own cause, 
Judge Thou between her and her enemies! 
She seeketh not her own honour, but Thine, 
Not the dominions of others, but Thy truth. 
Not bloodshed, but the saving of the afflicted! 
Oh, rend the heavens, therefore, and come down. 
Deliver Thy people! 
To vanquish is all one with Thee, by few 
Or many, want or wealthy weakness or strength. 
The cause is Thine, the enemies Thine, the afflicted 
Thine! The honour, victory, and triumph 

287 



DRAKE 



Thine! Grant her people now one heart, one 

mind, 
One strength. Give unto her councils and her 

captains 
Wisdom and courage strongly to withstand 
The forces of her enemies, that the fame 
And glory of Thy Kingdom may he spread 
Unto the ends of the world. Father, we crave 
This in Thy mercy, for the precious death 
Of Thy dear Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ! 
Amen, 
And as the dreadful dawn thro' mist-wreaths 

broke, 
And out of Plymouth Sound at last, with cheers 
Ringing from many a thousand throats, there 

struggled 
Six little ships, all that the night's long toil 
Had warped down to the sea (but leading them 
The ship of Drake) there rose one ocean cry 
From all those worshippers — Let God arise, 
And let His enemies he scattered! 

Under the leaden fogs of that new dawn, 

288 



BOOK XI 



Empty and cold, Indifferent as death, 
The sea heaved strangely to the seamen's eyes, 
Seeing all round them only the leaden surge 
Wrapped In wet mists or flashing here and there 
With crumbling white. Against the cold wet wind 
Westward the little ships of England beat 
With short tacks, close inshore, striving to win 
The windward station of the threatening battle 
That neared behind the veil. Six litde ships. 
No more, beat Westward, even as all mankind 
Beats up against that universal wind 
Whereon like withered leaves all else is blown 
Down one wide way to death : the soul alone. 
Whether at last it wins, or faints and fails, 
Stems the dark tide with its intrepid sails. 
Close-hauled, with many a short tack, struggled 

and strained, 
Northwest, Southwest, the ships; but ever West- 
ward gained 
Some little way with every tack; and soon. 
While the prows plunged beneath the grey-gold 

noon, 
Lapped by the crackling waves, even as the wind 

289 



DRAKE 



Died down a little, in the mists behind 

Stole out from Plymouth Sound the struggling 

score 
Of ships that might not win last night to sea. 
They followed; but the Six went on before, 
Not knowing, alone, for God and Liberty. 

Now, as they tacked Northwest, the sullen roar 
Of reefs crept out, or some strange bleating sound 

Of sheep upon the hills. Southwest once more 
The bo'sun's whistle swung their bowsprits round; 

Southwest until the long low lapping splash 
Was all they heard of keels that still ran out 

Seaward, then with one muffled heave and crash 
Once more the whistles brought their sails about. 

And now the noon began to wane; the West 

With slow rich colours filled and shadowy forms. 

Dark curdling wreaths and fogs with crimsoned breast, 
And tangled zones of dusk like frozen storms, 

Motionless, flagged with sunset, hulled with doom! 
Motionless? Nay, across the darkening deep 
290 



BOOK XI 



Surely the whole sky moved its gorgeous gloom 
Onward; and like the curtains of a sleep 

The red fogs crumbled, mists dissolved away! 

There, like death's secret dawning thro' a dream, 
Great thrones of thunder dusked the dying day, 

And, higher, pale towers of cloud began to gleam. 

There, in one heaven-wide storm, great masts and clouds 

Of sail crept slowly forth, the ships of Spain ! 
From North to South, their tangled spars and shrouds 

Controlled the slow wind as with bit and rein; 
Onward they rode in insolent disdain 

Sighting the little fleet of England there. 
While o'er the sullen splendour of the main 

Three solemn guns tolled all their host to prayer. 
And their great ensign blazoned all the doom-fraught 
air. 

The sacred standard of their proud crusade 
Up to the mast-head of their flag-ship soared; 

On one side knelt the Holy Mother-maid, 
On one the crucified Redeemer poured 

His blood, and all their kneeling hosts adored 

291 



DRAKE 



Their saints, and clouds of incense heavenward 
streamed, 
While pomp of cannonry and pike and sword 

Down long sea-lanes of mocking menace gleamed, 
And chant of priests rolled out o'er seas that darkly 
dreamed. 

Who comes to fight for England? Is it ye, 

Six little straws that dance upon the foam? 
Ay, sweeping o'er the sunset-crimsoned sea 

Let the proud pageant in its glory come, 
Leaving the sunset like a hecatomb 

Of souls whose bodies yet endure the chain! 
Let slaves, by thousands, branded, scarred and dumb, 

In those dark galleys grip their oars again. 
And o'er the rolling deep bring on the pomp of Spain ; — 

Bring on the pomp of royal paladins 

(For all the princedoms of the land are there!) 

And for the gorgeous purple of their sins 

The papal pomp bring on with psalm and prayer: 

Nearer the splendour heaves; can ye not hear 
The rushing foam, not see the blazoned arms. 

And black-faced hosts thro' leagues of golden air 

292 



BOOK XI 



Crowding the decks, muttering their beads and 
charms 
To where. In furthest heaven, they thicken like locust- 
swarms? 

Bring on the pomp and pride of old Castile, 

Blazon the skies with royal Aragon, 
Beneath Oquendo let old ocean reel, 

The purple pomp of priestly Rome bring on; 
And let her censers dusk the dying sun, 

The thunder of her banners on the breeze 
Following Sidonia's glorious galleon 

Deride the sleeping thunder of the seas. 
While twenty thousand warriors chant her litanies. 

Lo, all their decks are kneeling! Sky to sky 

Responds! It is their solemn evening hour. 
Salve Regina^ though the daylight die. 

Salve Regina, though the darkness lour; 
Have they not still the kingdom and the power? 

Salve Regina, hark, their thousands cry, 
From where like clouds to where like mountains tower 

Their crowded galleons looming far or nigh. 
Salve Regina, hark, what distant seas reply! 

293. 



DRAKE 



What distant seas, what distant ages hear? 

Bring on the pomp ! the sun of Spain goes down : 
The moon but swells the tide of praise and prayer; 

Bring on the world-wide pomp of her renown; 
Let darkness crown her with a starrier crown, 

And let her watch the fierce waves crouch and fawn 
Round those huge hulks from which her cannon frown, 

While close inshore the wet sea-mists are drawn 
Round England's Drake: then wait, in triumph, for the 
dawn. 

The sun of Rome goes down ; the night is dark ! 

Still are her thousands praying, still their cry 
Ascends from the wide waste of waters, hark! 

Ave Maria, darker grows the sky! 
Ave Maria, those about to die 

Salute thee! Nay, what wandering winds blaspheme 
With random gusts of chilling prophecy 

Against the solemn sounds that heavenward stream! 
The night is come at last. Break not the splendid 
dream. 

But through the misty darkness, close inshore, 
Northwest, Southwest, and ever Westward 
strained 

294 



BOOK XI 



The little ships of England, all night long, 
As down the coast the reddening beacons leapt, 
The crackle and lapping splash of tacking keels, 
The bo'sun's low sharp whistles and the whine 
Of ropes, mixing with many a sea-bird's cry 
Disturbed the darkness, waking vague swift fears 
Among the mighty hulks of Spain that lay 
Nearest, then fading through the mists inshore 
Northwest, then growing again, but farther down 
Their ranks to Westward with each dark return 
And dark departure, till the rearmost rank 
Of grim sea-castles heard the swish and creak 
Pass plashing seaward thro' the wet sea-mists 
To windward now of all that monstrous host, 
Then heard no more than wandering sea-birds' 

cries 
Wheeling around their leagues of lanthorn-llght, 
Or heave of waters, waiting for the dawn. 

Dawn, everlasting and almighty dawn 

Rolled o'er the waters, the grey mists were fled: 

See, in their reeking heaven-wide crescent drawn 
Those masts and spars and cloudy sails, outspread 
295 



DRAKE 



Like one great sulphurous tempest soaked with red, 
In vain withstand the march of brightening skies: 

The dawn sweeps onward and the night is dead, 
And, lo! to windward, what bright menace lies, 

What glory kindles now in England's wakening eyes? 

There, on the glittering plains of open sea, 

To windward now, behind the fleets of Spain, 
Two little files of ships are tossing free. 

Free of the winds and of the wind-swept main: 
Were they not trapped? Who brought them forth 
again, 

Free of the great new fields of England's war, 
With sails like blossoms shining after rain, 

And guns that sparkle to the morning star? 
Drake ! — first upon the deep that rolls to Trafalgar ! 

And Spain knows well that flag of fiery fame, 
Spain knows who leads those files across the sea; 

Implacable, invincible, his name 

El Draque, creeps hissing through her ranks to lee; 

But now she holds the rolling heavens in fee. 
His ships are few. They surge across the foam. 

The hunt is up! But need the mountains flee 

2^6 



BOOK XI 



Or fear the snarling wolf-pack? Let them come! 
They crouch, but dare not leap upon the flanks of Rome. 

Nearer they come and nearer! Nay, prepare! 

Close your huge ranks that sweep from sky to sky! 
Madness itself would shrink; but Drake will dare 

Eternal hell! Let the great signal fly — 
Close up your ranks; El Draque comes down to die! 

El Draque is brave! The vast sea cities loom 
Thro' heaven: Spain spares one smile of chivalry, 

One wintry smile across her cannons' gloom 
As that frail fleet full-sail comes rushing tow'rds its 
doom. 

Suddenly, as the wild change of a dream, 

Even as the Spaniards watched those lean sharp 

prows 
Leap straight at their huge hulks, watched well 

content. 
Knowing their foes, once grappled, must be 

doomed; 
Even as they caught the rush and hiss of foam 
Across that narrow, dwindling gleam of sea. 
And heard, abruptly close, the sharp commands 

297 



DRAKE 



And steady British answers, caught one glimpse 
Of bare-armed seamen waiting by their guns, 
The vision changed! The ships of England 

swerved 
Swiftly — a volley of flame and thunder swept 
Blinding the buffeted air, a volley of iron 
From four sheer broadsides, crashing thro' a hulk 
Of Spain. She reeled, blind in the fiery surge 
And fury of that assault. So swift it seemed 
That as she heeled to leeward, ere her guns 
Trained on the foe once more, the sulphurous cloud 
That wrapped the sea, once, twice, and thrice again 
Split with red thunder-claps that rent and raked 
Her huge beams through and through. Ay, as 

she heeled 
To leeward still, her own grim cannon belched 
Their lava skyward, wounding the void air, 
And, as by miracle, the ships of Drake 
Were gone. Along the Spanish rear they swept 
From North to South, raking them as they went 
At close range, hardly a pistol-shot away, 
With volley on volley. Never Spain had seen 
Seamen or marksmen like to these who sailed 

298 



BOOK XI 



Two knots against her one. They came and went, 
Suddenly neared or sheered away at will 
As if by magic, pouring flame and Iron 
In four full broadsides thro' some Spanish hulk 
Ere one of hers burst blindly at the sky. 
Southward, along the Spanish rear they swept, 
Then swung about, and volleying sheets of flame, 
Iron, and death, along the same fierce road 
Littered with spars, reeking with sulphurous fumes, 
Returned, triumphantly rushing, all their sails 
Alow, aloft, full-bellied with the wind. 

Then, then, from sky to sky, one mighty surge 

Of baleful pride, huge wrath, stormy disdain, 
With shuddering clouds and towers of sail would urge 

Onward the heaving citadels of Spain, 
Which dragged earth's thunders o'er the groaning main, 

And held the panoplies of faith in fee, 
Beating against the wind, struggling in vain 

To close with that swift ocean cavalry: 
Spain had all earth in charge! Had England, then, the 
sea? 

Spain had the mountains — mountains flow like clouds! 

299 



DRAKE 



Spain had great kingdoms — kingdoms melt away ! 
Yet, in that crescent, army on army crowds, 

How shall she fear what seas or winds can say? — 
The seas that leap and shine round earth's decay. 

The winds that mount and sing while empires fall, 
And mountains pass like waves in the wind's way, 

And dying gods thro' shuddering twilights call; 
Had England, then, the sea that sweeps o'er one and 
all? 

See, in gigantic wrath the Rata hurls 

Her mighty prows round to the wild sea-wind: 
The deep like one black maelstrom round her swirls 

While great Recalde follows hard behind: 
Reeling, like Titans, thunder-blasted, blind, 

They strive to cross the ships of England — yea. 
Challenge them to the grapple, and only find 

Red broadsides bursting o'er the bursting spray. 
And England surging still along her windward way! 

To windward still Revenge and Raleigh flasH 
And thunder, and the sea flames red between: 

In vain against the wind the galleons crash 

And plunge and pour blind volleys thro' the screen 
300 



BOOK XI 



Of rolling sulphurous clouds at dimly seen 
Topsails that, to and fro, like sea-birds fly! 

Ever to leeward the great hulks careen; 

Their thousand cannon can but wound the sky, 

While England's little Rainbow foams and flashes by. 

Suddenly the flag-ship of Recalde, stung 
To fury it seemed, heeled like an avalanche 
To leeward, then reeled out beyond the rest 
Against the wind, alone, daring the foe 
To grapple her. At once the little Revenge 
With Drake's flag flying flashed at her throat, 
And hardly a cable's-length away out-belched 
Broadside on broadside, under those great cannon. 
Crashing through five-foot beams, four shots to 

one, 
While Howard and the rest swept to and fro 
Keeping at deadly bay the rolling hulks 
That looming like Leviathans now plunged 
Desperately against the freshening wind 
To rescue the great flag-ship where she lay 
Alone, amid the cannonades of Drake, 
Alone, like a volcanic island lashed 

301 



DRAKE 



With crimson hurricanes, dinning the winds 
With isolated thunders, flaking the skies 
With wrathful lava, while great spars and blocks 
Leapt through the cloudy glare and fell, far off, 
Like small black stones into the hissing sea. 

Oquendo saw her peril far away! 

His rushing prow thro' heaven begins to loom, 
Oquendo, first in all that proud array. 

Hath heart the pride of Spain to reassume: 
He comes; the rolling seas are dusked with gloom 

Oi his great sails! Now round him once again. 
Thrust out your oars, ye mighty hulks of doom ; 

Forward, with hiss of whip and clank of chain! 
Let twice ten hundred slaves bring on the wrath of 
Spain ! 

Sidonia comes! Toledo comes! — ^huge ranks 

That rally against the storm from sky to sky. 
As down the dark blood-rusted chain-locked planks 

Of labouring galleys the dark slave-guards ply 
Their knotted scourges, and the red flakes fly 

From bare scarred backs that quiver and heave once 
more, 

302 



BOOK XI 



And slaves that heed not If they live or die 

Pull with numb arms at many a red-stained oar, 
Nor know the sea's dull crash from cannon's growing 
roar. 

Bring on the wrath ! From heaven to rushing heaven 

The white foam sweeps around their fierce array; 
In vain before their shattering crimson levin 

The ships of England flash and dart away: 
Not England's heart can hold that host at bay! 

See, a swift signal shoots along her line, 
Her ships are scattered ; they fly, they fly like spray 

Driven against the wind by wrath divine, 
While, round Recalde now, SIdonla's cannon shine. 

The wild sea-winds with golden trumpets blaze! 

One wave will wash away the crimson stain 
That blots Recalde's decks. Her first amaze 

Is over: down the Channel once again 
Turns the triumphant pageantry of Spain 

In battle-order, now. Behind her, far, 
While the broad sun sinks to the Western main, 

Glitter the little ships of England's war. 
And over them in heaven glides out the first white star. 

The sun goes down : the heart of Spain is proud : 

303 



DRAKE 



Her censers fume, her golden trumpets blow! 
Into the darkening East with cloud on cloud 

Of broad-flung sail her huge sea-castles go: 
Rich under blazoned poops like rose-flushed snow 

Tosses the foam. Far off the sunset gleams: 
Her banners like a thousand sunsets glow, 

As down the darkening East the pageant streams, 
Full-fraught with doom for England, rigged with 
princely dreams. 

Nay, " rigged with curses dark," as o'er the waves 
Drake watched them slowly sweeping into the 

gloom 
That thickened down the Channel, watched them 

go 
In ranks compact, roundels impregnable, 

With Biscay's bristling, broad-beamed squadron 

drawn 
Behind for rear-guard. As the sun went down 
Drake flew the council-flag. Across the sea 
That gleamed still like a myrlad-petalled rose 
Up to the little Revenge the pinnaces foamed. 
There, on Drake's powder-grimed escutcheoned 

poop 

304 



BOOK XI 



They gathered, Admirals and great flag-captains, 
Hawkins, Frobisher, shining names and famous, 
And some content to serve and follow and fight 
Where duty called unknown, but heroes all. 
High on the poop they clustered, gazing East 
With faces dark as iron against the flame 
Of sunset, eagle-faces, iron lips, 
And keen eyes fiercely flashing as they turned 
Like sword-flames now, or dark and deep as night 
Watching the vast Armada slowly mix 
Its broad-flung sails with twilight where it dragged 
Thro' thickening heavens Its curdled storm of 

clouds 
Down the wide darkening Channel. 

" My Lord Howard,'^ 
Said Drake, " it seems we have but scarred the 

skins 
Of those huge hulks: the hour grows late for 

England. 
Twere well to handle them again at once." A 

growl 
Of fierce approval answered; but Lord Howard 
Cried out, " Attack we cannot, save at risk 

305 



DRAKE 



Of our whole fleet. It Is not death I fear, 
But England's peril. We have fought all day, 
Accomplished nothing! Half our powder Is 

spent I 
I think it best to hang upon their flanks 
Till we be reinforced! " 

" My lord," said Drake, 
" Had we that week to spare for which I prayed, 
And were we handling them in Spanish seas, 
We might delay. There is no choosing now. 
Yon hulks of doom are steadfastly resolved 
On one tremendous path and solid end- — 
To join their powers with Parma's thirty thousand 
(Not heeding our light horsemen of the sea). 
Then in one earthquake of o'erwhelming arms 
Roll Europe over England. They've not grasped 
The first poor thought which now and evermore 
Must be the sceptre of Britain, the steel trident 
Of ocean sovereignty. That mighty fleet 
Invincible, impregnable, omnipotent. 
Must here and now be shattered, never be joined 
With Parma, never abase the wind-swept sea, 
With oaken roads for thundering legions 
To trample in the splendour of the sun 

306 



BOOK XI 



From Europe to our Island. 

As for food, 
In yonder enemy's fleet there Is food enough 
To feed a nation; ay, and powder enough 
To split an empire. I will answer for it 
Ye shall not lack of either, nor for shot. 
Not though ye pluck them out of your own beams 
To feed your hungry cannon. Cast your bread 
Upon the waters. Think not of the Queen ! 
She will not send It! For she hath not known 
(How could she know) this wide new realm of 

hers. 
When we ourselves — her seamen — scarce have 

learnt 
What means this kingdom of the ocean sea 
To England and her throne-^food, life-blood, 

life! 
She could not understand who, when our ships 
Put out from Plymouth, hardly gave them store 
Of powder and shot to last three fighting days, 
Or rations even for those. Blame not the Queen, 
Who hath striven for England as no king hath 

fought 
Since England was a nation. Bear with me, 

307 



DRAKE 



For I must pour my heart before you now 

This one last time. Yon fishing-boats have brought 

Tidings how on this very day she rode 

Before her mustered pikes at Tilbury. 

Methinks I see her riding down their lines 

High on her milk-white Barbary charger, hear 

Her voice — * My people, though my flesh be 

woman, 
My heart is of your kingly lion's breed: 
I come myself to lead you ! ' I see the sun 
Shining upon her armour, hear the voice 
Of all her armies roaring like one sea— 
God save Elizabeth, our English Queen! 
* God save her,' I say, too ; but still she dreams, 
As all too many of us — bear with me I — dream. 
Of Cregy, when our England's war was thus; 
When we, too, hurled our hosts across the deep 
As now Spain dreams to hurl them on our isle. 
But now our war Is otherwise. We claim 
The sea's command, and Spain shall never land 
One swordsman on our island. Blame her not. 
But look not to the Queen. The people fight 
This war of ours, not princes. In this hour 

308 



BOOK XI 



God maketh us a people. We have seen 

Victories, never victory like to this, 

When in our England's darkest hour of need 

Her seamen, without wage, powder, or food. 

Are yet on fire to fight for her. Your ships 

Tossing in the great sunset of an Empire, 

Dawn of a sovereign people, are all manned 

By heroes, ragged, hungry, who will die 

Like flies ere long, because they have no food 

But turns to fever-breeding carrion 

Not fit for dogs. They are half-naked, hopeless 

Living, of any reward; and if they die 

They die a dog's death. We shall reap the fame 

While they — great God! and all this cannot 

quench 
The glory in their eyes. They will be served 
Six at a mess of four, eking it out 
With what their own rude nets may catch by night. 
Silvering the guns and naked arms that haul 
Under the stars with silver past all price, 
While some small ship-boy In the black crow's nest 
Watches across the waters for the foe. 
My lord, it is a terrible thing for Spain 

309 



DRAKE 



When poor men thus go out against her princes ; 
For so God whispers * Victory ' In our ears, 
I cannot dare to doubt it." 

Once again 
A growl of fierce approval answered him, 
And Hawkins cried — ** I stand by Francis Drake" ; 
But Howard, clinging to his old-world order, 
Yet with such manly strength as dared to rank 
Drake's wisdom of the sea above his own. 
Sturdily shook his head. " I dare not risk 
A close attack. Once grappled we are doomed. 
We'll follow on their trail no less, with Drake 
Leading. Our oriflamme to-night shall be 
His cresset and stern-lanthorn. Where that shines 
We follow." 

Drake, still thinking In his heart, — 
" And if Spain be not shattered here and now 
We are doomed no less," must even rest content 
With that good vantage. 

As the sunset died 
Over the darkling emerald seas that swelled 
Before the freshening wind, the pinnaces dashed 
To their own ships; and into the mind of Drake 

31Q 



BOOK XI 



There stole a plot that twitched his lips to a smile. 
High on the heaving purple of the poop 
Under the glimmer of firm and full-blown sails 
He stood, an iron statue, glancing back 
Anon at his stern-cresset's crimson flare, 
The star of all the shadowy ships that plunged 
Like ghosts amid the grey stream of his wake, 
And all around him heard the low keen song 
Of hidden ropes above the wail and creak 
Of blocks and long low swish of cloven foam, 
A keen rope-music in the formless night, 
A harmony, a strong intent good sound. 
Well-strung and taut, singing the will of man. 
*' Your orlflamme,'* he muttered, — " so you travail 
With sea-speech in the tongue of old Poictiers — 
Shall be my own stern-lanthorn. Watch it well, 
My good Lord Howard." 

Over the surging seas 
The little Revenge went swooping on the trail. 
Leading the ships of England. One by one 
Out of the gloom before them slowly crept, 
Sinister gleam by gleam, like blood-red stars. 
The rearmost lanthorns of the Spanish Fleet, 

311 



DRAKE 



A shaggy purple sky of secret storm 
Heaving from north to south upon the black 
Breast of the waters. Once again with lips 
Twitched to a smile, Drake suddenly bade them 

crowd 
All sail upon the little Revenge. She leapt 
Forward. Smiling he watched the widening gap 
Between the ships that followed and her light, 
Then as to those behind, its flicker must seem 
Wellnigh confused with those of Spain, he cried, 
" Now, master bo'sun, quench their oriflamme, 
Dip their damned cresset in the good black Sea ! 
The rearmost light of Spain shall lead them now, 
A little closer, if they think it ours. 
Pray God, they come to blows! " 

Even as he spake, 
His cresset-flare went out in the thick night: 
A fluttering as of blind bewildered moths 
A moment seized upon the shadowy ships 
Behind him, then with crowded sail they steered 
Straight for the rearmost cresset-flare of Spain. 



312 



BOOK XII 

MEANWHILE, as In the gloom he 
slipped aside 
Along the Spanish ranks, waiting the 
crash 
Of battle, suddenly Drake became aware 
Of strange sails bearing up Into the wind 
Around his right, and thought, " the Armada 

strives 
To weather us In the dark.'* Down went his helm, 
And all alone the little Revenge gave chase, 
Till as the moon crept slowly forth, she stood 
Beside the ghostly ships, only to see 
Bewildered Flemish merchantmen, amazed 
With fears of Armageddon — such vast shrouds 
Had lately passed them on the rolling seas. 
Down went his helm again, with one grim curse 
Upon the chance that led him thus astray ; 
And down the wind the little Revenge once more 
Swept on the trail. Fainter and fainter now 

313 



DRAKE 



Glared the red beacons on the British coasts, 

And the wind slackened and the glimmering East 

Greyed and reddened, yet Drake had not regained 

Sight of the ships. When the full glory of dawn 

Dazzled the sea, he found himself alone, 

With one huge galleon helplessly drifting 

A cable's-length away. Around her prow, 

Nuestra Senora del Rosarioy 

Richly emblazoned, gold on red, proclaimed 

The flagship of great Valdes, of the fleet 

Of Andalusia, captain-general. She, 

Last night, in dark collision with the hulks 

Of Spain, had lost her foremast. Through the 

night 
Her guns, long rank on deadly rank, had kept 
All enemies at bay. Drake summoned her 
Instantly to surrender. She returned 
A scornful answer from the glittering poop 
Where two-score officers crowned the golden sea 
And stained the dawn with blots of richer colour 
Loftily clustered in the glowing sky, 
Doubleted with cramoisy velvet, wreathed 
With golden chains, blazing with jewelled swords 

314 



BOOK XII 



And crusted poignards. " What proud haste was 

this?" 
They asked, glancing at their huge tiers of cannon 
And crowded decks of swarthy soldiery; 
*' What madman In yon cockle-shell defied Spain? " 
"Tell them it is El Draque," he said, "who 

lacks 
The time to parley; therefore it will be well 
They strike at once, for I am in great haste." 
There, at the sound of that renowned name, 
Without a word down came their blazoned flag I 
Like a great fragment of the dawn it lay 
Crumpled upon their decks. . . . 

Into the soft bloom and Italian blue 
Of sparkling, ever-beautiful Torbay, 
Belted as with warm Mediterranean crags, 
The little Revenge foamed with her mighty prize, 
A prize indeed — not for the casks of gold 
Drake split in the rich sunlight and poured out 
Like dross amongst his men, but in her hold 
Lay many tons of powder, worth their weight 
In rubles now to Britain. Into the hands 

315 



DRAKE 



Of swarthy Brixham fishermen he gave 
Prisoners and prize, then — loaded stem to stern 
With powder and shot — their swiftest trawlers 

flew 
Like falcons following a thunder-cloud 
Behind him, as with crowded sail he rushed 
On England's trail once more. Like a caged lion 
Drake paced his deck, praying he yet might reach 
The fight in time; and ever the warm light w^ind 
Slackened. Not till the sun was half-way fallen 
Once more crept out in front those dusky thrones 
Of thunder, heaving on the smooth bright sea 
From North to South with Howard's clustered 

fleet 
Like tiny clouds, becalmed, not half a mile 
Behind the Spaniards. For the breeze had failed 
Their bhnd midnight pursuit; and now attack 
Seemed hopeless. Even as Drake drew nigh, the 

last 
Breath of the wind sank. One more day had 

flown, 
Nought was accomplished; and the Armada lay 
Some leagues of golden sea-way nearer now 

316 



BOOK XII 



To its great goal. The sun went down : the moon 
Rose glittering. Hardly a cannon-shot apart 
The two fleets lay becalmed upon the silver 
Swell of the smooth night-tide. The hour had 

come 
For Spain to strike. The ships of England drifted 
Helplessly, at the mercy of those great hulks 
Oared by their thousand slaves. 

% Onward they came, 

Swinging suddenly in tremendous gloom 
Over the silver seas. But even as Drake, 
With eyes on fire at last for his last fight, 
Measured the distance ere he gave the word 
To greet it with his cannon, suddenly 
The shining face of the deep began to shiver 
With dusky patches: the doomed English sails 
Quivered and, filling smart from the Northeast, 
The little Revenge rushed down their broken line 
Signalling them to follow, and ere they knew 
What miracle had saved them, they all sprang 
Their luff and ran large out to sea. For now 
The Armada lay to windward, and to fight 
Meant to be grappled and overwhelmed; but dark 

317 



DRAKE 



Within the mind of Drake, a fiercer plan 
Already had shaped Itself. 

''They fly! They fly!" 
Rending the heavens from twice ten thousand 

throats 
A mighty shout rose from the Spanish Fleet. 
Over the moonlit waves their galleons came 
Towering, crowding, plunging down the wind 
In full chase, while the tempter, Drake, laughed 

low 
To watch their solid battle-order break 
And straggle. When once more the golden dawn 
Dazzled the deep, the labouring galleons lay 
Scattered by their unequal speed. The wind 
Veered as the sun rose. Once again the ships 
Of England lay to windward. Down swooped 

Drake 
Where like a mountain the San Marcos heaved 
Her giant flanks alone, having outsailed 
Her huge companions. Then the sea-winds blazed 
With broadsides. Two long hours the sea flamed 

red 
All round her. One by one the Titan ships 

318 



BOOK XII 



Came surging to her rescue, and met the buffet 
Of battle-thunders, belching Iron and flame; 
Nor could they pluck her forth from that red chaos 
Till great Oquendo hurled his mighty prows 
Crashing athwart those thunders, and once more 
Gathered Into unshakeable battle-order 
The whole Armada raked the reeking seas. 
Then up the wind the ships of England sheered 
Once more, and one more day drew to Its close. 
With little accomplished, half their powder spent, 
And all the Armada moving as of old, 
From sky to sky one heaven-wide zone of storm 
(Though some three galleons out of all their host 
Laboured woundlly) down the darkening Channel. 
And all night long on England's guardian heights 
The beacons reddened, and all the next long day 
The Impregnable Armada never swerved 
From Its tremendous path. In vain did Drake, 
Froblsher, Hawkins, Howard, greatest names 
In all our great sea-history, hover and dart 
Like falcons round the mountainous array. 
Till now, as night fell and they lay abreast 
Of the Isle of Wight, once more the council flag 

319 



DRAKE 



Flew from the little Revenge. With Iron face 
Thrust close to Howard's, and outstretched Iron 

arm, 
Under the stars Drake pointed down the coast 
Where the red beacons flared. *' The shoals," he 

hissed, 
" The shoals from Owers to Splthead and the net 
Of channels yonder ^ In Portsmouth Roads. At 

dawn 
They'll lie to leeward of the Invincible 
Fleet!" 

Swiftly, In mighty sweeping lines Drake set 
Before the council his fierce battle-plan 
To drive the Armada down upon the banks 
And utterly shatter it — stroke by well-schemed 

stroke 
As he unfolded there his vital plot 
And touched their dead cold warfare Into life, 
Where plan before was none, he seemed to tower 
Above them, clad with the deep night of stars ; 
And those that late would rival knew him now. 
In all his great simplicity, their king, 
One of the gods of battle, England's Drake, 

320 



BOOK XII 



A soul that summoned Caesar from his grave. 

And swept with Alexander o'er the deep. 

So when the dawn thro' rolling wreaths of cloud 

Struggled, and all the waves were molten gold, 

The heart of Spain exulted, for she saw 

The litde fleet of England cloven in twain 

As if by some strange discord. A light breeze 

Blew from the ripening East; and, up against it. 

Urged by the very madness of defeat, 

Or so it seemed, one half the British fleet 

Drew nigh, towed by their boats, to challenge the 

vast 
Tempest-winged heaving citadels of Spain, 
At last to the murderous grapple ; while far away 
Their other half, led by the flag of Drake, 
Stood out to sea, as if to escape the doom 
Of that sheer madness, for the light wind now 
Could lend them no such wings to hover and swoop 
As heretofore. Nearer the mad ships came 
Towed by their boats, till now upon their right 
To windward loomed the Fleet Invincible 
With all its thunder-clouds, and on their left 
To leeward, gleamed the perilous white shoals 

321 



DRAKE 



With their long level lightnings under the cliffs 
Of England, from the green glad garden of 

Wight 
To the Owers and Selsea Bill. Right on they 

came, 
And suddenly the wrench of thundering cannon 
Shook the vast hulks that towered above them. 

Red 
Flamed the blue sea between. Thunder to thunder 
Answered, and still the ships of Drake sped out 
To the open sea. Sidonia saw them go, 
Furrowing the deep that like a pale-blue shield 
Lay diamond-dazzled now in the full light. 
Rich was the omen of that day for Spain, 
The feast-day of Sidonia's patron-saint I 
And the priests chanted and the trumpets blew 
Triumphantly I A universal shout 
Went skyward from the locust-swarming decks, 
A shout that rent the golden morning clouds 
From heaven to menacing heaven, as casde to 

castle 
Flew the great battle-signal, and like one range 
Of moving mountains, those almighty ranks 

322 



BOOK XII 



Swept down upon the small forsaken ships ! 
The lion's brood was in the Imperial nets 
Of Rome at last. Onward the mountains came 
With all their golden clouds of sail and flags 
Like streaming cataracts ; all their glorious chasms 
And glittering steeps, echoing, re-echoing, 
Calling, answering, as with the herald winds 
That blow the golden trumpets of the morning 
From Skiddaw to Helvellyn. In the midst 
The great San Martin surged with heaven-wide 

press 
Of proudly billowing sail; and yet once more 
Slowly, solemnly, like another dawn 
Up to her mast-head soared in thunderous gold 
The sacred standard of their last crusade; 
While round a hundred prows that heaved thro' 

heaven 
Like granite cliffs, their black wet shining flanks, 
And swept like moving promontories, rolled 
The splendid long-drawn thunders of the foam. 
And flashed the untamed white lightnings of the 

sea 
Back to a morn unhalyarded of man, 

323 



DRAKE 



Back to the unleashed sun and blazoned clouds 
And azure sky — the unfettered flag of God. 

Like one huge moving coast-line on they came 

Crashing, and closed the ships of England round 
With one fierce crescent of thunder and sweeping flame, 

One crimson scythe of Death, whose long sweep 
drowned 
The eternal ocean with its mighty sound. 

From heaven to heaven, one roar, one glitter of doom. 
While out to the sea-line's blue remotest bound 

The ships of Drake still fled, and the red fume 
Of battle thickened and shrouded shoal and sea with 
gloom. 

The distant sea, the close white menacing shoals 

Are shrouded ! And the lion's brood fight on ! 
And now death's very midnight round them rolls; 

Rent is the flag that late so proudly shone: 
The red decks reel, and their last hope seems gone! 

Round them they still keep clear one ring of sea: 
It narrows; but the lion's brood fight on, 

Ungrappled still, still fearless and still free, 
While the white menacing shoals creep slowly out to lee. 

324 



BOOK XII 



Now through the red rents of each fire-cleft cloud, 

High o'er the British blood-greased decks flash out 
Thousands of swarthy faces, crowd on crowd 

Surging, with one tremendous hurricane shout 
On, to the grapple! and still the grim redoubt 

Of the oaken bulwarks rolls them back again, 
As buffeted waves that shatter in the furious bout 

When cannonading cliffs meet the full main 
And hurl it back in smoke, — so Britain hurls back 
Spain ; 

Hurls her back, only to see her return. 

Darkening the heavens with billow on billow of sail: 
Round that huge storm the waves like lava burn, 

The daylight withers, and the sea-winds fail! 
Seamen of England, what shall now avail 

Your naked arms? Before those blasts of doom 
The sun is quenched, the very sea-waves quail: 

High overhead their triumphing thousands loom. 
When hark! what low deep guns to windward suddenly 
boom? 

What low deep strange new thunders far away 

Respond to the triumphant shout of Spain? 
Is it the wind that shakes their giant array? 

325 



DRAKE 



Is it the deep wrath of the rising main? 
Is It — El Draque f El Draque! Ay, shout again, 

His thunders burst upon your windward flanks; 
The shoals creep out to leeward! Is it plain 

At last, what earthquake heaves your herded ranks 
Huddled in huge dismay tow'rds those white foam- 
swept banks? 

Plain, It was plain at last, what cunning lured, 
What courage held them over the jaws o* the pit, 
Till Drake could hurl them down. The little ships 
Of Howard and Frobisher, towed by their boats, 
Slipped away In the smoke, while out at sea 
Drake, with a gale of wind behind him, crashed 
Volley on volley into the helpless rear 
Of Spain and drove It down, huddling the whole 
Invincible Fleet together upon the verge 
Of doom. One awful surge of stormy wrath 
Heaved thro' the struggling citadels of Spain. 
From East to West their desperate signal flew. 
And like a drove of bullocks, with the foam 
Flecking their giant sides, they staggered and 
swerved, 

326 



BOOK XII 



Careening tow'rds the shallows as they turned, 
Then in one wild stampede of sheer dismay 
Rushed, tacking seaward, while the grey sea plain 
Smoked round them, and the cannonades of Drake 
Raked their wild flight; and their crusading flag, 
Tangled in one black maze of crashing spars, 
Whirled downward like the pride of Lucifer 
From heaven to hell. 

Out towVds the coasts of France 
They plunged, narrowly weathering the Ower 

banks ; 
Then, once again, they formed in ranks compact, 
Roundels impregnable, wrathfully bent at last 
Never to swerve again from their huge path 
And solid end — to join with Parma's host. 
And hurl the whole of Europe on our isle. 
Another day was gone, much powder spent; 
And, while Lord Howard exulted and conferred 
Knighthoods on his brave seamen, Drake alone 
Knew that his mighty plan, in spite of all, 
Had failed, — knew that wellnigh his last great 

chance 
iWas lost of wrecking the Spaniards ere they joined 

Z^7 



DRAKE 



Parma. The night went by, and the next day, 
With scarce a visible scar the Invincible Fleet 
Drew onward towVds its goal, unshakeable now 
In that grim battle-order. Beacons flared 
Along the British coast, and pikes flashed out 
All night, and a strange dread began to grip 
The heart of England, as it seemed the might 
Of seamen most renowned in all the world 
Checked not that huge advance. Yet at the heart 
Of Spain no less there clung a vampire fear 
And strange foreboding, as the next day passed 
Quietly, and behind her all day long 
The shadowy ships of Drake stood on her trail 
Quietly, patiently, as death or doom, 
Unswerving and implacable. 

While the sun 
Sank thro' long crimson fringes on that eve. 
The fleets were passing Calais, and the wind 
Blew fair behind them. A strange impulse seized 
Spain to shake off those bloodhounds from her 

trail, 
And suddenly the whole Invincible Fleet 
Anchored, in hope the following wind would bear 

328 



BOOK XII 



The ships of England past and carry them down 
To leeward. But their grim Insistent watch 
Was ready; and though their van had wellnigh 

crashed 
Into the rear of Spain, in the golden dusic, 
They, too, a cannon-shot away, at once 
Anchored, to windward still. 

Quietly heaved 
The golden sea in that tremendous hour 
Fraught with the fate of Europe and mankind, 
As yet once more the flag of council flew, 
And Hawkins, Howard, Froblsher, and Drake 
Gathered together upon the little Revenge, 
While like a triumphing fire the news was borne 
To Spain, already, that the Invincible Fleet 
Had reached Its end, ay, and " that great black dog 
Sir Francis Drake ** was writhing now in chains 
Beneath the torturer's hands. 

High on his poop 
He stood, a granite rock, above the throng 
Of captains, there amid the breaking waves 
Of clashing thought and swift opinion. 
Silent, gazing where now the cool fresh wind 

329 



DRAKE 



Blew steadily up the terrible North Sea 
Which rolled under the clouds Into a gloom 
Unfathomable. Once only his lips moved 
Half-consclously, breathing those mighty words, 
The clouds His chariot/ Then, suddenly, he 

turned 
And looked upon the little flock of ships 
That followed on the fleet of England, sloops 
Helpless in fight. These, manned by the brave 

zeal 
Of many a noble house, from hour to hour 
Had plunged out from the coast to join his flag. 
" Better if they had brought us powder and food 
Than sought to join us thus," he had growled; but 

now 
" Lord God," he cried aloud, " they'll light our 

road 
To victory yet I " And in great sweeping strokes 
Once more he drew his mighty battle-plan 
Before the captains. In the thickening gloom 
They stared at his grim face as at a man 
Risen from hell, with all the powers of hell 
At his command, — a face tempered like steel 

330 



BOOK XII 



In the everlasting furnaces, a rock 

Of adamant, while with a voice that blent 

With the ebb and flow of the everlasting sea 

He spake, and at the low deep menacing words 

Monotonous with the unconquerable 

Passion and level strength of his great soul 

They shuddered; for the man seemed more than 

man, 
And from his iron lips resounded doom 
As from the lips of cannon — doom to Spain, 
Inevitable, unconquerable doom. 

And through that mighty host of Spain there crept 

Cold winds of fear, as to the darkening sky- 
Once more from lips of kneeling thousands swept 

The vespers of an Empire — one vast cry, 
Salve Regina! God, what wild reply 

Hissed from the clouds in that dark hour of dreams? 
Ave Maria, those about to die 

Salute thee! See, what ghostly pageant streams 
Above them ? What thin hands point down like pale 
moonbeams? 

Thick as the ghosts that Dante saw in hell 

Whirled on the blast thro' boundless leagues of pain, 
2>Z^ 



DRAKE 



Thick, thick as wind-blown leaves innumerable, 
In the Inquisition's yellow robes her slain 

And tortured thousands, dense as the red rain 
That wellnigh quenched her fires, went hissing by 

With twisted shapes, raw from the racks of Spain, 
Salve Regina! — rushing thro' the sky, 

And pale hands pointing down and lips that mocked her 
cry. 

Ten thousand times ten thousand! — what are these 

That are arrayed in yellow robes and sweep 
Between your prayers and God like phantom seas 

Prophesying over your masts? Could Rome not keep 
The keys? Who loosed these dead to break your sleep? 

Salve Regina, cry, yea, cry aloud, 
Ave Maria! Ye have sown: shall ye not reap? 

Salve Regina! Christ, what fiery cloud 
Suddenly rolls to windward, high o'er mast and shroud?, 

Are hell-gates burst at last? For the black deep 
To windward burns with streaming crimson fires! 

Over the wild strange waves, they shudder and creep 
Nearer — strange smoke-wreathed masts and spars, red 
spires 



BOOK XII 



And blazing hulks, vast roaring blood-red pyres, 
Fierce as the flames ye fed with flesh of men 

Amid the Imperial pomp and chanting choirs 
Of Alva — from El Draque's red hand again 

Sweep the wild fire-shlps down upon the Fleet of Spain. 

Onward before the freshening wind they come 

Full fraught with all the terrors, all the bale 
That flamed so long for the delight of Rome, 

The shrieking fires that struck the sunlight pale. 
The avenging fires at last! Now what avail 

Your thousand ranks of cannon ? Swift, cut free. 
Cut your scorched cables! Cry, reel backward, quail, 

Crash your huge huddled ranks together, flee! 
Behind you roars the fire, before — the dark North Sea! 

Dawn, everlasting and omnipotent 
Dawn rolled in crimson o'er the spar-strewn waves, 
As the last trumpet shall in thunder roll 
O'er heaven and earth and ocean. Far away, 
The ships of Spain, great ragged piles of gloom 
And shaggy splendour, leaning to the North 
Like sun-shot clouds confused, or rent apart 
In scattered squadrons, furiously plunged, 

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DRAKE 



Burying their mighty prows i* the broad grey rush 
Of smoking billowy hills, or heaving high 
Their giant bowsprits to the wandering heavens, 
Labouring in vain to return, struggling to lock 
Their far-flung ranks anew, but drifting still 
To leeward, driven by the ever-increasing storm 
Straight for the dark North Sea. Hard by there 

lurched 
One gorgeous galleon on the ravening shoals, 
Feeding the white maw of the famished waves 
With gold and purple webs from kingly looms 
And spilth of world-wide empires. Howard, still 
Planning to pluck the Armada plume by plume. 
Swooped down upon that prey and swiftly engaged 
Her desperate guns ; while Drake, our ocean king. 
Knowing the full worth of that doom-fraught hour, 
Glanced neither to the left nor right, but stood 
High on his poop, with calm implacable face 
Gazing as into eternity, and steered 
The crowded glory of his dawn-flushed sails 
In superb onset, straight for the great fleet 
Invincible ; and after him the main 
Of England's fleet, knowing its captain now, 

334 



BOOK XII 



Followed, and with them rushed — from sky to sky 
One glittering charge of wrath — the storm's white 

waves, 
The twenty thousand foaming chariots 
Of God 

None but the everlasting voice 
Of him who fought at Salamis might sing 
The fight of that dread Sabbath. Not mankind 
Waged it alone. War waged in heaven that day, 
Where Michael and his angels drave once more 
The hosts of darkness ruining down the abyss 
Of chaos. Light against darkness, Liberty 
Against all dark old despotism, unsheathed 
The sword in that great hour. Behind the strife 
Of men embattled deeps beyond all thought 
Moved in their awful panoply, as move 
Silent, invisible, swift, under the clash 
Of waves and flash of foam, huge ocean glooms 
And vast reserves of inappellable power. 
The bowsprits ranked on either fore-front seemed 
But spear-heads of those dread antagonists 
Invisible: the shuddering sails of Spain 
Dusk with the shadow of death, the sunward sails 

33S 



DRAKE 



Of England full-fraught with the breath of God. 

Onward the ships of England and God's waves 

Triumphantly charged, glittering companions, 

And poured their thunders on the extreme right 

Of Spain, whose giant galleons as they lurched 

Heavily to the roughening sea and wind 

With all their grinding, wrenching cannon, worked 

On rolling platforms by the helpless hands 

Of twenty thousand soldiers, without skill 

In stormy seas, rent the Indifferent sky 

Or tore the black troughs of the swirling deep 

In vain, while volley on volley of flame and iron 

Burst thro' their four-foot beams, fierce raking 

blasts 
From ships that came and went on wings of the 

wind 
All round their mangled bulk, scarce a pike's thrust 
Away, sweeping their decks from stem to stern 
(Between the rush and roar of the great green 

waves) 
With crimson death, rending their timbered towns 
And populous floating streets Into wild squares 
Of slaughter and devastation ; driving them down, 



BOOK XII 



Huddled on their own centre, cities of shame 
And havoc, in fiery forests of tangled wrath, 
With hurricanes of huge masts and swarming spars 
And multitudinous decks that heaved and sank 
Like earthquake-smitten palaces, when doom 
Comes, with one stride, across the pomp of kings. 
All round them shouted the everlasting sea, 
Burst in white thunders on the streaming poops 
And blinded fifty thousand eyes with spray. 
Once, as a gorgeous galleon, drenched with blood 
Began to founder and settle, a British captain 
Called from his bulwarks, bidding her fierce crew 
Surrender and come aboard Straight through the 

heart 
A hundred muskets answered that appeal. 
Sink or destroy/ The deadly signal flew 
From mast to mast of England. Once, twice, 

thrice, 
A huge sea-castle heaved her haggled bulk 
Heavenward, and with a cry that rent the heavens 
From all her crowded decks, and one deep roar 
As of a cloven world or the dark surge 
Of chaos yawning, sank: the swirling slopes 

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DRAKE 



Of the sweeping billowy hills for a moment 

swarmed 
With struggling insect-men, sprinkling the foam 
With tossing arms; then the indifferent sea 
Rolled Its grey smoking waves across the place 
Where they had been. Here a great galleasse 

poured 
Red rivers through her scuppers and torn flanks, 
And there a galleon, wrapped In creeping fire, 
Suddenly like a vast volcano split 
Asunder, and o'er the vomiting sulphurous clouds 
And spouting spread of crimson, flying spars 
And heads torn from their trunks and scattered 

limbs 
Leapt, hideous gouts of death, against the glare. 
Hardly the thrust of a pike away, the ships 
Of England flashed and swerved, till in one mass 
Of thunder-blasted splendour and shuddering 

gloom 
Those gorgeous floating citadels huddled and 

shrank 
Their towers, and all the glory of dawn that rolled 
And burned along the tempest of their banners 

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BOOK XII 



Withered, as on a murderer's face the light 
Withers before the accuser. All their proud 
Castles and towers and heaven-wide clouds of sail 
Shrank to a darkening horror, like the heart 
Of Evil, plucked from midnight's fiercest gloom, 
With all its curses quivering and alive; 
A horror of wild masts and tangled spars. 
Like some great kraken with a thousand arms 
Torn from the filthiest cavern of the deep, 
Writhing, and spewing forth its venomous fumes 
On every side. Sink or destroy! — all day 
The deadly signal flew; and ever the sea 
Swelled higher, and the flashes of the foam 
Broadened and leapt and spread as the wild 

white fire 
That flourishes with the wind; and ever the storm 
Drave the grim battle onward to the wild 
Menace of the dark North Sea. At set of sun, 
Even as below the sea-line the broad disc 
Sank like a red-hot cannon-ball through scurf 
Of seething molten lead, the Santa Maria 
Uttering one cry that split the heart of heaven 
Went down with all hands, roaring into the dark. 

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DRAKE 



Hardly five rounds of shot were left to Drake ! 
Gun after gun fell silent, as the night 
Deepened — *' Yet we must follow them to the 

North," 
He cried, " or they'll return yet to shake hands 
With Parma ! Come, we'll put a brag upon it, 
And hunt them onward as we lacked for nought ! " 
So, when across the swinging smoking seas, 
Grey and splendid and terrible broke the day 
Once more, the flying Invincible fleet beheld 
Upon their weather-beam, and dogging them 
Like their own shadow, the dark ships of Drake, 
Unswerving and implacable. Ever the wind 
And sea increased; till now the heaving deep 
Swelled all round them into sulky hills 
And rolling mountains, whose majestic crests. 
Like wild white flames far blown and savagely 

flickering, 
Swept thro' the clouds; and, on their vanishing 

slopes, 
Past the pursuing fleet began to swirl 
Scores of horses and mules, drowning or drowned, 
Cast overboard to lighten the wild flight 

340 



BOOK XII 



Of Spain, and save her water-casks, a trail 
Telling of utmost fear. And ever the storm 
Roared louder across the leagues of rioting sea. 
Driving her onward like a mighty stag 
Chased by the wolves. Off the dark Firth of 

Forth 
At last, Drake signalled and lay head to wind. 
Watching. "The chariots of God are twenty 

thousand," 
He muttered, as, for a moment close at hand. 
Caught in some league-wide whirlpool of the sea. 
The mighty galleons crowded and towered and 

plunged 
Above him on the huge overhanging billows. 
As if to crash down on his decks; the next, 
A mile of ravening sea had swept between 
Each of those wind-whipt straws and they were 

gone. 
With all their tiny shrivelling scrolls of sail, 
Through roaring deserts of embattled death, 
Where like a hundred thousand chariots charged 
With lightnings and with thunders, the great deep 
Hurled them away to the North. From sky to sky 

341 



DRAKE 



One blanching bursting storm of Infinite seas 
Followed them, broad white cataracts, hills that 

grasped 
With struggling Titan hands at reeling heavens, 
And roared their doom-fraught greetings from 

Cape Wrath 
Round to the Bloody Foreland. 

There should the yeast 
Of foam receive the purple of many kings, 
And the grim gulfs devour the blood-bought gold 
Of Aztecs and of Incas, and the reefs, 
League after league, bristle with mangled spars, 
And all along their coast the murderous kerns 
Of Catholic Ireland strip the gorgeous silks 
And chains and jewel-encrusted crucifixes 
From thousands dead, and slaughter thousands 

more 
With gallow-glass axes as they blindly crept 
Forth from the surf and jagged rocks to seek 
Pity of their own creed. 

To meet that doom 
Drake watched their sails go shrivelling, till the 

last 

342 



BOOK XII 



Flicker of spars vanished as a skeleton leaf 
Upon the blasts of winter, and there was nought 
But one wide wilderness of splendour and gloom 
Under the northern clouds. 

" Not unto us," 
Cried Drake, " not unto us — ^but unto Him 
Who made the sea, belongs our England now ! 
Pray God that heart and mind and soul we prove 
Worthy among the nations of this hour 
And this great victory, whose ocean fame 
Shall wash the world with thunder till that day 
When there is no more sea, and the strong cliffs 
Pass like a smoke, and the last peal of It 
Sounds thro' the trumpet." 

So, with close-hauled sails. 
Over the rolling triumph of the deep. 
Lifting their hearts to heaven, they turned back 
home. 



THE END 



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